HISTOHf  I 


THE  ORIGINS  AND  DESTINY 
OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 


J.  A.  CRAMB 


THE 
ORIGINS  AND  DESTINY 

OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

AND 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 


BY  THE  LATE 

J.  A.  CRAMB,  M.A. 

PROFESSOR  OF  MODERN  HISTORY,  QUEEN'S  COLLEGE,  LONDON 
AUTHOR  OF  "GERMANY  AND  ENGLAND" 


WITH  A  MEMOIR  AND  PORTRAIT 
OF  THE  AUTHOR 


NEW  YORK 

E.  P.  BUTTON  &  COMPANY 
681  FIFTH  AVENUE 


COPYRIGHT.  1915 

BY 
E.  P.  DUTTON  &  COMPANY 


Vft* 


"  For  the  noveltie  and  strangenesse  of  the  matter  which  I 
determine  and  deliberate  to  entreat  upon,  is  of  efficacie  and 
force  enough  to  draw  the  mindes  both  of  young  and  olde  to 
the  diligent  reading  and  digesting  of  these  labours.  For  what 
man  is  there  so  despising  knowledge,  or  any  so  idle  and 
slothfull  to  be  found,  which  will  eschew  or  avoide  by  what 
policies  or  by  what  kinde  of  government  the  most  part  of 
nations  of  the  universall  world  were  vanquished,  subdued 
and  made  subject  unto  the  one  empire  of  the  Romanes,  which 
before  that  time  was  never  seen  or  heard?  Or  who  is  there 
that  hath  such  earnest  affection  to  other  discipline  or  studie, 
that  he  suposeth  any  kind  of  knowledge  to  be  of  more  value 
or  worthy  to  be  esteemed  before  this  ?  " 

Histories  of  the  most  famous  Chronographer,  POLYBIUS. 

(Englished  by  C.  W.,  and  imprinted  at  London,  Anno  1568.) 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

JOHN  ADAM  CRAMB  was  born  in  1862.  He  was 
educated  at  Glasgow  and  Bonn  Universities.  In 
1885  he  graduated  at  Glasgow,  taking  First  Class 
Honours  in  Classics,  and  in  the  same  year  was  ap- 
pointed to  the  Luke  Fellowship  in  English  Litera- 
ture. He  subsequently  travelled  on  the  Continent, 
and  in  1887  married  the  third  daughter  of  the  late 
Mr.  Edward  W.  Selby  Lowndes,  of  Winslow,  and 
left  one  son.  From  1888  to  1890  he  was  Lecturer 
in  Modern  History  at  Queen  Margaret  College, 
Glasgow.  Settling  in  London  in  1890  he  contrib- 
uted several  articles  to  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  and  also  occasional  reviews  to  periodi- 
cals. For  many  years  he  was  an  examiner  for  the 
Civil  Service  Commission.  In  1892  he  was  ap- 
pointed Lecturer  and  in  1893  Professor  of  Modern 
History  at  Queen's  College,  London,  where  he  lec- 
tured until  his  death.  He  was  also  an  occasional 
lecturer  on  military  history  at  the  Staff  College, 
Camberley,  and  at  York,  Chatham,  and  other  centres. 
In  London  he  gave  private  courses  on  history, 
literature,  and  philosophy.  His  last  series  of  lec- 
tures was  delivered  in  February  and  March,  1913, 
the  subject  being  the  relations  between  England  and 


BIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE 

Germany.  In  response  to  many  requests  he  was 
engaged  in  preparing  these  lectures  for  publication 
when,  in  October,  1913,  he  died. 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  are  a  reprint  of  a  course  of 
lectures  delivered  in  May,  June,  and  July,  1900. 
Their  immediate  inspiration  was  the  war  in  South 
Africa  (two  of  the  lectures  deal  directly  with  that 
war),  but  in  these  pages,  written  fifteen  years  ago, 
will  be  found  foreshadowed  the  ideals  and  deeds  of 
the  present  hour.  The  last  chapter  — "  Nineteenth 
Century  Europe  " —  was  written  by  Mr.  Cramb  for 
the  Daily  News  Special  Number  for  December  3ist, 
1900.  In  it  he  presents  a  survey  of  the  political 
events  and  tendencies  throughout  Europe  during 
the  nineteenth  century.  He  outlines  the  develop- 
ment of  the  New  German  Empire  from  the  war 
against  Napoleon  down  to  the  days  of  Bismarck 
and  Wilhelm  II,  and  shows  how  the  Russian  general 
Skobeleff,  the  hero  of  Plevna  and  the  Schipka  Pass, 
foretold  over  thirty  years  ago  the  present  death- 
struggle  between  Teuton  and  Slav  in  Eastern  Eu- 
rope. The  future  roles  of  France,  Italy,  and  Spain 
are  also  clearly  indicated  by  the  author. 

When  the  book  first  appeared,  Mr.  Cramb  wrote 
that  he  "  had  been  induced  to  publish  these  reflec- 
tions by  the  belief  or  the  hope  that  at  the  present 
grave  crisis  they  might  not  be  without  service  to 


PREFACE 

his  country."  His  lectures  are  now  reprinted  in  the 
hope  that  they  may  be  "  not  without  service  "  to  the 
whole  English-speaking  world. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I 
THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST 

CHAPTER  I 

PAGE 

WHAT  is  IMPERIALISM? i 

1.  THE  UNCONSCIOUS  AND  THE  CONSCIOUS  IN   HIS- 

TORY        4 

2.  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN   IMPERIALISM          .        .        .        II 

3.  THE  MANDATE  OF  DESTINY IQ 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL  .  25 

1.  OF  THE  ACTION  OF  STATES  AND  OF  INDIVIDUALS  2/ 

2.  THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  AS  APPLIED  TO  HISTORY    .  3! 

3.  THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  I  ITS  SECOND  ASPECT  .      .  42 

CHAPTER  III 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL  .     57 

1.  RELIGION  AND  IMPERIALISM 58 

2.  THE  PLACE  OF  RELIGION  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY   ,     60 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

3.  DISTINCTION  OF  THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  VIKINGS      66 

4.  WORLD-HISTORIC  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE  ENGLISH 

REFORMATION 7O 

5.  THE    TESTIMONY    OT   THE    PAST:    A    FINAL    CON- 

SIDERATION           83 


PART    II 

THE  DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

CHAPTER  IV 
THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 91 

1.  HISTORICAL     SIGNIFICANCE     OF     THE     WAR      IN 

SOUTH    AFRICA Q2 

2.  NATIONALITY   AND   IMPERIALISM 95 

3.  THE  WAR  OF   A  DEMOCRACY IOI 

4.  COSMOPOLITANISM    AND   JINGOISM       .        .        .        .Ill 

5.  MILITARISM 113 

-CHAPTER  V 
WHAT  is  WAR? 117 

1.  THE  PLACE  OF  WAR  IN  WORLD-HISTORY    .        .        .  117 

2.  DEFINITION    OF   WAR 126 

3.  COUNT  TOLSTOI   AND  CARLYLE  UPON   WAR       .        .  129 

4.  COUNT     TOLSTOI     AS     REPRESENTATIVE     OF     THE 

SLAVONIC    GENIUS 134 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

5.  THE  TEACHINGS  OF  CHRIST  AND  WAR        .        .        .     139 

6.  THE    IDEAL  OF    UNIVERSAL   PEACE          ....     143 

7.  IMPERIALISM    AND   WAR 154 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  VICISSITUDES  OF  STATES  AND  EMPIRES     .  159 

1.  THE  METAPHYSICAL  ORIGIN  OF  THE  STATE  .      .  l6o 

2.  THE  STATE,  EMPIRES,  AND  ART l6/ 

3.  THE    FALL    OF    EMPIRES:    THE    THEORY    OF 

RETRIBUTION 173 

4.  THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  I  THE  CYCLIC  THEORY     .    178 

5.  WHAT  IS  MEANT  BY  THE  "  FALL  OF  AN  EM- 

PIRE"? ,     186 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN  AND  THE 
DESTINY  OF  MAN 198 

1.  THE  PRESENT  STAGE  IN  THE  HISTORY  OF  IM- 

PERIAL BRITAIN 2OO 

2.  THE  DESTINY  OF   MAN 2O7 

3.  THE    FOUR    PERIODS    OF    MODERN    HISTORY    AND 

THEIR  IDEALS 211 

4.  THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  FOURTH  AGE 219 

5-  THE  "  ACT  "  AND  THE  "  THOUGHT  "       .      .      .  227 
6.  BRITAIN'S   WORLD-MISSION  :   THE   WITNESS   OF 

THE  DEAD  TO  THE  MANDATE  OF  THE  PRES- 
ENT   230 


CONTENTS 
PART  III 

NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 


CHAPTER  VIII 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

1.  DOMINION  OF  THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY        .        .        .  243 

2.  NATIONALITY   AND    MODERN    REPUBLICANISM        .  257 

3.  THE  IDEALS  OF  A  NEW  AGE 2/2 


PART  I 
THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST 


THE  ORIGINS  AND  DESTINY 
OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

CHAPTER  I 

WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

THE  present  age  has  rewritten  the  annals  of  the 
world,  and  set  its  own  impress  on  the  traditions  of 
humanity.  In  no  period  has  the  burden  of  the  past 
weighed  so  heavily  upon  the  present,  or  the  inter- 
pretation of  its  speculative  import  troubled  the  heart 
so  profoundly,  so  intimately,  so  monotonously. 

How  remote  we  stand  from  the  times  when 
Raleigh  could  sit  down  in  the  Tower,  and  with  less 
anxiety  about  his  documents,  State  records,  or  stone 
monuments  than  would  now  be  imperative  in  com- 
piling the  history  of  a  county,  proceed  to  write  the 
History  of  the  World!  And  in  speculation  it  is  the 
Tale,  the  fabula,  the  procession  of  impressive  inci- 
dents and  personages,  which  enthralls  him,  and  with 
perfect  fitness  he  closes  his  work  with  the  noblest 
Invocation  to  Death  that  literature  possesses.  But 
beneath  the  variety  or  pathos  of  the  Tale  the  present 
age  ever  apprehends  a  deeper  meaning,  or  is  op- 


s 


2  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

pressed  by  a  sense  of  mystery,  of  wonder,  or  of  sor- 
row unrevealed,  which  defies  tears. 

This  revolution  in  our  conception  of  History,  this 
boundless  industry  which  in  Germany,  France,  Eng- 
land, Italy,  has  led  to  the  printing  of  mountains  of 
forgotten  memoirs,  correspondences,  State  papers, 
this  endless  sifting  of  evidence,  this  treasuring  above 
riches  of  the  slight  results  slowly  and  patiently 
drawn,  is  neither  accident,  nor  transient  caprice,  nor 
antiquarian  frenzy,  but  a  phase  of  the  guiding  im- 
pulse, the  supreme  instinct  of  this  age  —  the  ardour 
to  know  all,  to  experience  all,  to  be  all,  to  suffer  all, 
in  a  word,  to  know  the  Truth  of  things  —  if  haply 
there  come  with  it  immortal  life,  even  if  there  come 
with  it  silence  and  utter  death.  The  deepened  sig- 
nificance of  history  springs  thus  from  the  deepened 
significance  of  life,  and  the  passion  of  our  interest 
in  the  past  from  the  passion  of  our  interest  in  the 
present  The  half -effaced  image  on  a  coin,  the  il- 
luminated margin  of  a  mediaeval  manuscript,  the 
smile  on  a  fading  picture  —  if  these  have  become, 
as  it  were,  fountains  of  unstable  reveries,  perpetuat- 
ing the  Wonder  which  is  greater  than  Knowledge, 
it  is  a  power  from  the  present  that  invests  them  with 
this  magic.  Life  has  become  more  self-conscious; 
not  of  the  narrow  self  merely,  but  of  that  deeper 
Self,  the  mystic  Presence  which  works  behind  the 
veil. 

World-history  is  no  more  the  fairy  tale  whose  end 
is  death,  but  laden  with  eternal  meanings,  signifi- 


IMPERIAL  BRITAIN  3 

cances,  intimations,  swift  gleams  of  the  Timeless 
manifesting  itself  in  Time.  And  the  distinguishing 
function  of  History  as  a  science  lies  in  its  ceaseless 
effort  not  only  to  lay  bare,  to  crystallise  the  mo- 
ments of  all  these  manifestations,  but  to  discover 
their  connecting  bond,  the  ties  that  unite  them  to 
each  other  and  to  the  One,  the  hidden  source  of 
these  varied  manifestations,  whether  revealed  as 
transcendent  thought,  art,  or  action. 

Hence,  as  in  prosecuting  elsewhere  our  inquiry 
into  the  origin  of  the  French  Monarchy  or  the  de- 
cline of  oligarchic  Venice,  we  examined  not  only  the 
characters,  incidents,  policies  immediately  connected 
with  the  subject,  but  attempted  an  answer  to  the 
question  —  What  is  the  place  of  these  incidents  in 
the  universal  scheme  of  things?  so  in  the  treatment 
of  the  theme  now  before  us,  the  origins  of  Imperial 
Britain,  pursuing  a  similar  plan,  we  have  to  consider 
not  merely  the  relations  of  Imperial  Britain  to  the 
England  and  Scotland  of  earlier  times,  but  its  rela- 
tions to  mediaeval  Europe,  and  to  determine  so  far 
as  is  possible  its  place  amongst  the  world-empires  of 
the  past.  I  use  the  phrase  "  Imperial  Britain,"  and 
not  "  British  Empire,"  because  from  the  latter,  ter- 
ritorial associations  are  inseparable.  It  designates 
India,  Canada,  Egypt,  and  the  like.  But  by  "  Im- 
perial- Britain "  I  wish  to  indicate  the  informing 
spirit,  the  unseen  force  from  within  the  race  itself, 
which  in  the  past  has  shapen  and  in  the  present  con- 
tinues to  shape  this  outward,  this  material  frame  of 


4  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

empire.  With  the  rise  of  this  spirit,  this  conscious- 
ness within  the  British  race  of  its  destiny  as  an  im- 
perial people,  no  event  in  recent  history  can  fitly 
be  compared.  The  unity  of  Germany  under  the 
Hohenzollern  is  an  imposing,  a  far-reaching  achieve- 
ment. The  aspirations  of  the  period  of  the  Auf- 
kldrung  —  Lessing,  Schiller,  Arndt,  and  Fichte  — 
find  in  this  edifice  their  political  realisation.  But 
the  incident  is  not  unprecedented.  Even  the  writ- 
ings of  Friedrich  Gentz  are  not  by  it  made  obsolete. 
It  has  affected  the  European  State-system  as  the 
sudden  unity  of  Spain  under  Ferdinand  or  the  com- 
pletion of  the  French  Monarchy  under  Louis  XIV 
affected  it.  But  in  this  unobserved,  this  silent 
growth  of  Imperial  Britain  —  so  unobserved  that 
it  presents  itself  even  now  as  an  unreal,  a  transient 
thing  —  a  force  intrudes  into  the  State-systems  of 
the  world  which,  whether  we  view  it  in  its  effects 
upon  the  present  age  or  seek  to  gauge  its  significance 
to  the  future,  has  few,  if  any,  parallels  in  history. 

§    I.       THE  UNCONSCIOUS  AND  THE  CONSCIOUS  IN 
HISTORY 

What  is  the  nature  of  this  Consciousness  ?  What 
is  its  historical  basis?  Is  it  possible  to  trace  the 
process  by  which  it  has  emerged  ? 

In  the  history  of  every  conscious  organism,  a  race, 
a  State,  or  an  individual,  there  is  a  certain  moment 
when  the  Unconscious  desire,  purpose,  or  ideal 


THE  UNCONSCIOUS  IN  HISTORY       5 

passes  into  the  Conscious.  Life's  end  is  then  mani- 
fest. The  ideal  unsuspected  hitherto,  or  dimly  dis- 
cerned, now  becomes  the  fixed  law  of  existence. 
Such  moments  inevitably  are  difficult  to  localise. 
Bonaparte  in  1793  fascinates  the  younger  Robes- 
pierre — "  He  has  so  much  of  the  future  in  his 
mind."  But  it  is  neither  Toulon,  nor  Vendemiaire, 
nor  Lodi,  but  the  marshes  of  Arcola,  two  years  after 
Robespierre  has  fallen  on  the  scaffold,  that  reveal 
Napoleon  to  himself.  So  Diderot  perceives  the 
true  bent  of  Rousseau's  genius  long  before  the 
Dijon  essay  reveals  it  to  the  latter  himself  and  to 
France.  Polybius  discovers  in  the  war  of  Regulus 
and  of  Mylse  the  beginning  of  Rome's  imperial  ca- 
reer, but  a  juster  instinct  leads  Livy  to  devote  his 
most  splendid  paragraphs  to  the  heroism  in  defeat 
of  Thrasymene  and  Cannae.  It  was  the  singular 
fate  of  Camoens  to  voice  the  ideal  of  his  race,  to 
witness  its  glory,  and  to  survive  its  fall.  The  prose 
of  Osorius  1  does  but  prolong  the  echoes  of  Camo- 

1  The  Latin  work  of  Osorius,  De  rebus  gestis  Emmanuelis 
regis  Lusitaniae,  appeared  in  1574,  two  years  later  than  Os 
Lusiadas.  The  twelve  books  of  Osorius  cover  the  twenty-six 
years  between  1495  and  1521,  thus  traversing  parts  of  the  same 
ground  as  Camoens.  But  the  hero  of  Osorius  is  Alboquerque. 
His  affectation  of  Ciceronianism,  the  literary  vice  of  the  age, 
casts  a  suspicion  upon  the  sincerity  of  many  of  his  epithets  and 
paragraphs,  yet  the  work  as  a  whole  is  composed  with  his 
eyes  upon  his  subject.  Seven  years  after  the  Latin,  a  French 
translation,  a  beautifully  printed  folio  from  Estienne's  press, 
was  published,  containing  eight  additional  books,  by  Lopez  de 
Castanedo  and  others,  bringing  the  history  down  to  1529. 


6  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

ens'  mighty  line.  Within  a  single  generation,  Por- 
tugal traces  the  bounds  of  a  world-empire,  great 
and  impressive;  the  next  can  hardly  discover  the 
traces.  But  to  the  limning  of  that  sketch  all  the 
past  of  Portugal  was  necessary,  though  then  it 
emerged  for  the  first  time  from  the  Unconscious 
to  the  Conscious.  Similarly  in  the  England  of  the 
seventeenth  century  the  conscious  deliberate  resolve 
to_be  itself  the  master  of  its  fate  takes  complete 
possession  of  the  nation.  This  is  the  ideal  which 
gives  essential  meaning  to  the  Petition  of  Right,  to 
the  Grand  Remonstrance,  to  the  return  at  the  Res- 
toration to  the  "principles  of  1640";  it  is  this 
which  gives  a  common  purpose  to  the  lives  of  Eliot, 
Pym,  Shaftesbury,  and  Somers.  It  is  the  unifying 
motive  of  the  politics  of  the  whole  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. The  eighteenth  expands  or  curtails  this,  bu^ 
originates  nothing.  An  ideal  from  the  past  controls 
the  genius  of  the  greatest  statesmen  of  the  eight- 
eenth century.  But  from  the  closing  years  of  the 
century  to  the  present  hour  another  ideal,  at  first 
existing  unperceived  side  by  side  with  the  former, 
has  slowly  but  insensibly  advanced,  obscure  in  its 
origins  and  little  regarded  in  its  first  developments, 
but  now  impressing  the  whole  earth  by  its  majesty 
—  the  Ideal  of  Imperial  Britain. 

It  is  vain  or  misleading  for  the  most  part  to  fix 
precisely  the  first  beginnings  of  great  movements  in 
history.  Nevertheless  it  is  often  convenient  to  se- 
lect for  special  study  even  arbitrarily  some  incident 


THE  UNCONSCIOUS  IN  HISTORY       7 

or  character  in  which  that  movement  first  conspicu- 
ously displays  itself.  And  if  the  question  were 
asked  —  When  does  monarchical  or  constitutional 
England  first  distinctively  pass  into  Imperial  Brit- 
ain? I  should  point  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  to  the  heroic  patience  with  which  the 
twenty-two  years'  war  against  France  was  borne, 
hard  upon  the  disaster  of  Yorktown  and  the  loss 
of  an  empire;  and  further,  if  you  proceeded  to 
search  in  speculative  politics  or  actual  speeches  for 
a  deliberate  expression  of  this  transition,  I  should 
select  as  a  conspicuous  instance  Edmund  Burke' s 
great  impeachment  of  Warren  Hastings.  There 
this  first  awakening  consciousness  of_an  Imperial 
destiny  declares  itself  in  a  very  dramatic  and  pro- 
nounced form  indeed,.  Yet  Burke' s  range  in  specu- 
lative politics,  compared  with  that  of  such  a  writer 
as  Montesquieu,  is  narrow.  His  conception  of  his- 
tory at  its  highest  is  but  an  anticipation  of  the  pic- 
turesque but  pragmatic  school  of  which  Macaulay 
is  coryphaeus.  In  religion  he  revered  the  traditions, 
and  acquiesced  in  the  commonplaces  of  his  time. 
His  literary  sympathies  were  less  varied,  his  taste 
less  sure  than  those  of  Charles  James  Fox.  In  con- 
stitutional politics  he  clung  obstinately  to  the  ideals 
of  the  past ;  to  Parliamentary  reform  he  was  hostile 
or  indifferent.  As  Pitt  was  the  first  great  states- 
man of  the  nineteenth  century,  so  Burke  was  the 
last  of  the  great  statesmen  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury; for  it  is  to  the  era  of  Pym  and  of  Shaftesbury 


8  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

that,  in  his  constitutional  theories,  Burke  strictly 
belongs.  But  if  his  range  was  narrow,  he  is  master 
there.  "  Within  that  circle  none  durst  walk  but  he." 
No  cause  in  world-history  has  inspired  a  nobler 
rhetoric,  a  mightier  language.  And  if  he  is  a  re- 
actionary in  constitutional  politics,  in  his  impeach- 
ment of  Hastings  he  is  the  prophet  of  a  new  era, 
the  annunciator  of  an  ideal  which  the  later  nine- 
teenth century  slowly  endeavours  to  realise  —  an 
empire  resting  not  on  violence,  but  on  justice  and 
freedom. 

This  ideal  influences  the  action,  the  policy,  of 
statesmen  earlier  in  the  century ;  but  in  Chatham  its 
precise  character,  that  which  differentiates  the  ideal 
of  Britain  from  that,  say,  of  Rome,  is  less  clear  than 
in  Burke.  And  in  the  seventeenth  century,  unless 
in  a  latent  unconscious  form,  it  can  hardly  be  traced 
at  all.  In  the  speculative  politics  of  that  century  we 
encounter  it  again  and  again;  but  in  practical  poli- 
tics it  has  no  part.  I  could  not  agree  with  Lord 
Rosebery  when  in  an  address  he  spoke  of  Cromwell 
as  "  a  great  Briton."  Cromwell  is  a  great  English- 
man, but  neither  in  his  actions  nor  in  his  policy, 
neither  in  his  letters,  nor  in  any  recorded  utterance, 
public  or  private,  does  he  evince  definite  sympathy 
with,  or  clear  consciousness  of  the  distinctive  ideal 
of  Imperial  Britain.  His  work  indeed  leads 
towards  this  end,  as  the  work  o-f  Raleigh,  of  the 
elder  Essex,  or  of  Grenville,  leads  towards  it,  but 
not  consciously,  not  deliberately. 


THE  UNCONSCIOUS  IN  HISTORY       9 

In  Burke,  however,  and  in  his  younger  contem- 
poraries, the  conscious  influence,  the  formative 
power  of  a  higher  ideal,  of  wider  aspirations  than 
moulded  the  actual  statesmanship  of  the  past,  can 
no  longer  escape  us.  The  Empire  is  being  formed, 
its  material  bounds  marked  out,  here  definitely, 
there  lost  in  receding  vistas.  On  the  battlefield  or 
in  the  senate-house,  or  at  the  counter  of  merchant 
adventurers,  this  work  is  slowly  elaborating  itself. 
And  within  the  nation  at  large  the  ideal  which  is 
to  be  the  spirit,  the  life  of  the  Empire  is  rising  into 
ever  clearer  consciousness.  Its  influence  throws  a 
light  upon  the  last  speeches  of  the  younger  Pitt. 
If  the  Impeachment  be  Burke's  chef  d'auvre,  Pitt 
never  reached  a  mightier  close  than  in  the  speech 
which  ended  as  the  first  grey  light  touched  the  east- 
ern windows  of  Westminster,  suggesting  on  the  in- 
stant one  of  the  happiest  and  most  pathetic  quota- 
tions ever  made  within  those  walls.2  The  ideal 

2  The  first  of  Pitt's  two  remarkable  speeches  in  the  great  de- 
bate of  April,  1792,  on  the  Abolition  of  the  Slave-trade  was 
made  on  April  2nd.  Pitt,  according  to  a  pamphlet  report 
printed  by  Phillips  immediately  afterwards,  rose  after  an  all- 
night  sitting  to  speak  at  four  o'clock  on  Tuesday  morning 
(April  3rd).  The  close  of  the  speech  is  thus  reported:  "If 
we  listen  to  the  voice  of  reason  and  duty,  and  pursue  this  night 
the  line  of  conduct  which  they  prescribe,  some  of  us  may  live 
to  see  a  reverse  of  that  picture,  from  which  we  now  turn  our 
eyes  with  pain  and  regret.  We  may  live  to  behold  the  natives 
of  Africa  engaged  in  the  calm  occupations  of  industry,  in  the 
pursuits  of  a  just  and  legitimate  commerce.  We  may  behold 
the  beams  of  science  and  philosophy  breaking  in  upon  their 


io  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

makes  great  the  life  of  Wilberforce;  it  exalts  Can- 
ning; and  Clarkson,  Romilly,  Cobbett,  Bentham  is 
each  in  his  way  its  exponent.  "  The  Cry  of  the 
Children "  derived  an  added  poignancy  from  the 
wider  pity  which,  after  errors  and  failures  more 
terrible  than  crimes,  extended  itself  to  the  suffering 
in  the  Indian  village,  in  the  African  forest,  or  by 
the  Nile.  The  Chartist  demanded  the  Rights  of 
Englishmen,  and  found  the  strength  of  his  demand 
not  diminished,  but  heightened,  by  the  elder  battle- 
land,  which  at  some  happy  period  in  still  later  times  may  blaze 
with  full  lustre,  and  joining  their  influence  to  that  of  pure  re- 
ligion, may  illumine  and  invigorate  the  most  distant  extremi- 
ties of  that  immense  continent  Then  may  we  hope  that  even 
Africa,  though  last  of  all  the  quarters  of  the  globe,  shall  enjoy 
at  length,  in  the  evening  of  her  days,  those  blessings  which 
have  descended  so  plentifully  upon  us  in  a  much  earlier  period 
of  the  world.  Then  also  will  Europe,  participating  in  her  im- 
provements and  prosperity,  receive  an  ample  recompense  for 
the  tardy  kindness  (if  kindness  it  can  be  called)  of  no  longer 
hindering  that  continent  from  extricating  herself  out  of  the 
darkness  which  in  other  more  fortunate  regions  has  been  so 
much  more  speedily  dispelled  — 

Non  primus  equis  oriens  afflavit  anhelis, 

illic  sera  rubens  accendit  lumina  Vesper. 

Then,  Sir,  may  be  applied  to  Africa  those  words,  originally 
indeed  used  with  a  different  view  — 

His  demum  exactis  — 

devenere  locos  laetos,  et  amoena  vireta 

fortunatorum  nemorum,  sedesque  beatas; 

largior  hie  campos  aether,  et  lumine  vestit 

purpureo." 

Pitt's  second  speech,  of  which  only  a  brief  impassioned  frag- 
ment remains,  was  delivered  on  April  27th  (Parl.  Hist,  xxix, 
pp.  1134-88). 


THE  UNCONSCIOUS  IN  HISTORY     n 

cry  of  the  "  Rights  of  Man."  Thus  has  this  ideal, 
grown  conscious,  gradually  penetrated  every  phase 
of  our  public  life.  It  removes  the  disabilities  of 
religion;  enfranchises  the  millions,  that  they  by 
being  free  may  bring  freedom  to  others.  In  the 
great  renunciation  of  1846  it  borrows  a  page  from 
Roman  annals,  and  sets  the  name  of  Peel  with  that 
of  Caius  Gracchus.  It  imparts  to  modern  politics 
an  inspiration  and  a  high-erected  effort,  the  power 
to  falter  at  no  sacrifice,  dread  no  responsibility. 

Thus,  then,  as  in  the  seventeenth  century  the  ideal 
of  national  and  constituted  freedom  takes  complete 
possession  of  the  English  people,  so  in  the  nineteenth 
this  ideal  of  Imperial  Britain,  risen  at  last  from 
the  sphere  of  the  Unconscious  to  the  Conscious,  has 
gradually  taken  possession  of  all  the  avenues  and 
passages  of  the  Empire's  life,  till  at  the  century's 
close  there  is  not  a  man  capable  of  sympathies  be- 
yond his  individual  walk  whom  it  does  not  strengthen 
and  uplift. 

§    2.      ANCIENT  AND   MODERN   IMPERIALISM 

Definitions  are  perilous,  yet  we  must  now  at- 
tempt to  define  this  ideal,  to  frame  an  answer  to 
the  question  —  What  is  the  nature  of  this  ideal 
which  has  thus  arisen,  of  this  Imperialism  which  is 
insensibly  but  surely  taking  the  place  of  the  nar- 
rower patriotism  of  England,  of  Scotland,  and  of 
Ireland?  Imperialism.  J  should  say,  is  patriotism 
transfigured  by  a  light  from  the  aspiratkmjsjaLuni- 


12  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 


humanity;  it  is  the  passion  of  Marathon,  of 
Flodden  or  Trafalgar,  the  ardour  of  a  de  Montfort 
or  a  Grenville,  intensified  to  a  serener  flame  by  the 
ideals  of  a  Condorcet,  a  Shelley,  or  a  Fichte.  This 
is  the  ideal,  and  in  the  resolution  deliberate  and 
conscious  to  realise  this  ideal  throughout  its  domin- 
ions, from  bound  to  bound,  in  the  voluntary  sub- 
mission to  this  as  to  the  primal  law  of  its  being, 
lies  what  may  be  named  the  destiny  of  Imperial 
Britain. 

As  the  artist  by  the  very  law  of  his  being  is  com- 
pelled to  body  forth  his  conceptions  in  colour,  in 
words,  or  in  marble,  so  the  race  dowered  with  the 
genius  for  empire  is  compelled  to  dare  all,  to  suffer 
all,  to  sacrifice  all  for  the  fulfilment  of  its  fate-ap- 
pointed task.  This  is  the  distinction,  this  the  char- 
acteristic of  the  empires,  the  imperial  races  of  the 
past,  of  the  remote,  the  shadowy  empires  of  Media, 
of  Assyria,  of  the  nearer  empires  of  Persia,  Mace- 
don,  and  Rome.  To  spread  the  name,  and  with 
the  name  the  attributes,  the  civilising  power  of 
Hellas,  throughout  the  world  is  the  ideal  of  Mace- 
don.  Similarly  of  Rome  :  to  subdue  the  world,  to 
establish  there  her  peace,  governing  all  in  justice, 
marks  the  Rome  of  Julius,  of  Vespasian,  of  Trajan. 
And  in  this  measureless  devotion  to  a  cause,  in  this 
surplus  energy,  and  the  necessity  of  realising  its 
ideals  in  other  races,  in  other  peoples,  lies  the  dis- 
tinction of  the  Imperial  State,  whether  city  or  na- 
tion. The  origin  of  these  characteristics  in  British 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  IMPERIALISM    13 

Imperialism  we  shall  examine  in  a  later  lecture. 
Let  me  now  endeavour  to  set  the  distinctive  ideal 
of  Britain  before  you  in  a  clearer  light.  Observe, 
first  of  all,  that  it  is  essentially  British.  It  is  not 
Roman,  not  Hellenic.  The  Roman  ideal  moulds 
every  form  of  Imperialism  in  Europe,  and  even  to 
a  certain  degree  in  the  East,  down  to  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  theory  of  the  mediaeval  empire  de- 
rives immediately  from  Rome.  The  Roman  justice 
disguised  as  righteousness  easily  warrants  persecu- 
tion, papal  or  imperial.  The  Revocation  of  the 
Edict  of  Passau  by  a  Hapsburg,  and  the  Revocation 
of  the  Edict  of  Nantes  by  a  Bourbon,  trace  their 
origin  without  a  break  to  that  emperor  to  whom 
Dante  assigns  so  great  a  part  in  the  Paradiso.3 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  with  the  levity  in  matters  of 
scholarship  which  he  sometimes  displayed,  once 
ascribed  the  phrase  imperium  ac  libertas  to  a  Roman 
historian.  The  voluntary  or  accidental  error  is 
nothing;  but  the  conception  of  Roman  Imperialism 
which  it  popularised  is  worth  considering.  It  is 
false  to  the  genius  of  Rome.  It  is  not  that  the 

3  Justinian  not  only  in  his  policy  but  in  his  laws  sums  the 
history  of  the  three  preceding  centuries,  and  determines  the 
history  of  the  centuries  which  follow.  To  Dante  he  repre- 
sents at  once  the  subtleties  of  Jurisprudence  and  Theology. 
The  Eagle's  hymn  in  the  Paradiso  (Cantos  xix,  xx)  defines 
the  limitations  and  the  glory  of  Roman  and  Mediaeval  Im- 
perialism.. The  essence  of  the  entire  treatise  De  Monarchia  is 
in  these  cantos ;  and  Canto  vi,  where  Justinian  in  person 
speaks,  is  informed  by  the  same  spirit. 


14  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

phrase  nowhere  occurs  in  a  Roman  historian;  but 
no  statesman,  no  Roman  historian,  not  Sulla,  not 
Caesar,  nor  Marcus,  could  ever  have  bracketed  these 
words.  Imperium  ac  justitia  he  might  have  said; 
but  he  could  never  have  used  together  the  concep- 
tions of  Empire  and  Freedom.  The  peoples  sub- 
dued by  Rome — Spain,  Gaul,  Africa  —  received 
from  Rome  justice,  and  for  this  gift  blessed  Rome's 
name,  deifying  her  genius.  But  the  ideal  of  Free- 
dom, the  freedom  that  allows  or  secures  for  every 
soul  the  power  to  move  in  the  highest  path  of  its 
being,  this  is  no  pre-occupation  of  a  Roman  states- 
man! Yet  it  is  in  this  ideal  of  freedom  that  the 
distinction,  or  at  least  a  distinction  of  Modern,  as 
opposed  to  Roman  or  Hellenic,  Europe  consists ;  in 
the  effort,  that  is  to  say,  to  spiritualise  the  concep- 
tion of  outward  justice,  of  outward  freedom,  to 
rescue  individual  life  from  the  incubus  of  the  State, 
transfiguring  the  State  itself  by  the  larger  freedom, 
the  higher  justice,  which  Sophocles  seeks  in  vain 
throughout  Hellas,  which  Virgil  in  Rome  can  no- 
where find.  The  common  traits  in  the  Kreon  of 
tragedy  and  the  Kritias  of  history,  in  the  hero  of 
the  JEneid  and  the  triumvir  Octavianus,  are  not 
accident,  but  arise  from  the  revolt  of  the  higher 
freedom  of  Art,  conscious  or  unconscious,  against 
the  essential  egoism  of  the  wrong  masking  as  right 
of  the  ancient  State.  And  it  is  in  the  Empire  of 
Britain  that  this  effort  of  Modern  Europe  is  real- 
ised, not  only  in  the  highest,  but  in  the  most  original 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  IMPERIALISM    15 

and  varied  forms.  The  power  of  the  Roman  ideal, 
on  the  other  hand,  saps  the  preceding  empires  of 
Modern  Europe  down  to  the  seventeenth  century, 
the  empire  of  the  German  Caesars,  the  Papacy  itself, 
Venice,  Spain,  Bourbon  France.  Consider  how 
completely  the  ideals  of  these  States  are  enshrined 
in  the  De  Monarchia,  and  how  closely  the  De  Mon- 
archia  knits  it-self  to  Caesarian  and  to  consular 
Rome! 

The  political  history  of  Venice,  stripped  of  its 
tinsel  and  melodrama,  is  tedious  as  a  twice-told  tale. 
Her  art,  her  palaces,  are  her  own  eternally,  a  treas- 
ury inexhaustible  as  the  light  and  mystery  of  the 
waters  upon  which  she  rests  like  a  lily,  the  changeful 
element  multiplying  her  structured  loveliness  and 
the  opalescent  hues  of  her  sky.  But  in  politics  Ven- 
ice has  not  enriched  the  world  with  a  single  inspir- 
ing thought  which  Rome  had  not  centuries  earlier 
illustrated  more  grandly,  more  simply,  and  with  yet 
pro  founder  meanings. 

Spain  falls,  not  as  Carlyle  imagines,  because  it 
"  rejects  the  Faith  proffered  by  the  visiting  angel " 
—  a  Protestant  Spain  is  impossible  —  but  because 
Spain  seeks  to  stifle  in  the  Netherlands,  in  Europe  at 
large,  that  freedom  which  modern  Europe  had  come 
to  regard  as  dearer  than  life —  freedom  to  worship 
God  after  the  manner  nearest  to  its  heart.  But 
disaster  taught  Spain  nothing  — 

As  ^Eschylus  says: 


16  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

Alas,  for  mortal  history!     In  happy  fortune 

A  shadow  might  overturn  its  height;  whilst  of  disaster 

A  wet  sponge  at  a  stroke  effaces  the  lesson; 

And  'tis  this  last  I  deem  life's  greater  woe. 

The  embittered  wisdom  of  ^schylus,  indeed, 
finds  in  all  history  no  more  shining  comment  than 
the  decline  of  Spain.4 

The  gloomy  resolution  of  the  Austrian  Ferdinand 

II,  the  internecine  war  of  thirty  years  which  he  pro- 
vokes, sullenly  pursues,  and  in  dying  bequeaths  to 
his  son,   are  visited  upon  his   house  at  Leuthen, 
Marengo,  Austerlitz,  and  in  the  overthrow  of  the 
empire  devised  ten  centuries  before  by  Leo  III  and 
Charlemagne. 

And  with  the  Revocation,  with  Le  Tellier  and 
the  Bull  Unigenitus,  the  procession  of  the  French 
kings  begins,  which  ends  in  the  Place  de  la  Revolu- 
tion :  — "  Son  of  St.  Louis,  ascend  to  Heaven." 

*  Portugal  in  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century  presents 
a  further  instance  of  an  empire  actuated  by  the  same  ideals  as 
those  of  Spain.  Within  a  single  century,  almost  within  the 
memory  of  a  single  life,  Portugal  appears  successively  as  a 
strong  united  nation,  an  empire  of  great  and  far-stretched  re- 
nown, and  then,  by  a  revolution  in  fortune  of  which  there  are 
few  examples,  as  a  vanquished  and  subject  State.  Her  mer- 
chants were  princes,  her  monarchs,  John  II,  Emmanuel,  John 

III,  and  Sebastian,  were  in  riches  kings  of  the  kings  of  Europe. 
But  during  the  brief  period  of  Portugal's  glory,  tyranny  and 
bigotry  went  hand  in  hand.    To  the  pride  of  her  conquista- 
dores  was  added  the  fanaticism  of  Xavier  and  his  retinue, 
and  in  the  very  years  when  within  the  same  region  Baber  and 
Akbar  were  raising  the  wise  and  tolerant  administration  of 
the  first  Moguls,  the  Inquisition,  with  its  priests,  incantations, 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  IMPERIALISM    17 

From  this  thraldom  to  the  past,  to  the  ideal  of 
Rome,  Imperial  Britain,  first  amongst  modern  em- 
pires, completely  breaks.  For  it  is  a  new  empire 
which  Imperial  Britain  presents  to  our  scrutiny,  a 
new  empire  moulded  by  a  new  ideal. 

Let  me  illustrate  this  by  a  contrast  —  a  contrast 
between  two  armies  and  what  each  brings  to  the 
vanquished. 

Who  that  has  read  the  historian  of  Alva  can 
forget  the  march  of  his  army  through  the  summer 
months  some  three  hundred  and  thirty  years  ago? 
That  army,  the  most  perfect  that  any  captain  had 
led  since  the  Roman  legions  left  the  world,  defiles 
from  the  gorges  of  Savoy,  and  division  behind  di- 
vision advances  through  the  passes  and  across  the 
plains  of  Burgundy  and  Lorraine.  One  simile 
leaps  to  the  pen  of  every  historian  who  narrates 
that  march,  the  approach  of  some  vast  serpent,  the 
glancing  of  its  coils  unwinding  still  visible  through 
the  June  foliage,  fateful,  stealthy,  casting  upon  its 
victim  the  torpor  of  its  irresistible  strength.  And 
to  the  Netherlands  what  does  that  army  bring? 

and  torture-chambers,  was  established  at  Goa.  The  resem- 
blance in  feature,  bearing,  and  in  character  between  the  Gil- 
berts, the  Grenvilles,  and  the  Alboquerques  and  Almeidas  is 
indisputable ;  but  certain  ineffaceable  and  intrinsic  distinctions 
ultimately  force  themselves  upon  the  mind.  And  these  dis- 
tinctions mark  the  divergence  between  the  fate  and  the  designs 
of  England  and  the  fate  and  the  designs  of  Lusitania,  between 
the  empire  of  Portugal  and  that  of  Britain.  Indeed,  upon  the 
spirit  of  mediaeval  imperialism  the  work  of  Osorius  is  hardly 
less  illuminating  than  the  deliberate  treatise  of  Dante. 


i8  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

Death  comes  with  it  —  death  in  the  shape  most  cal- 
culated to  break  the  resolution  of  the  most  daunt- 
less —  the  rack,  the  solitary  dungeon,  the  awful  ap- 
parel of  the  Inquisition  torture-chamber,  the  auto- 
da^fe,  and  upon  the  evening  air  that  odour  of  the 
burning  flesh  of  men  wherewith  Philip  of  Spain 
hallowed  his  second  bridals.  These  things  accom- 
pany the  march  of  Alva.  And  that  army  of  ours 
which  day  by  day  advances  not  less  irresistibly 
across  the  veldt  of  Africa,  what  does  that  army  por- 
tend? That  army  brings  with  it  not  the  rack,  nor 
the  dungeon,  nor  the  dread  auto-da-fe;  it  brings 
with  it,  and  not  to  one  people  only  but  to  the  vast 
complexity  of  peoples  within  her  bounds,  the  assur- 
ance of  England's  unbroken  might,  of  her  devotion 
to  that  ideal  which  has  exercised  a  conscious  sway 
over  the  minds  of  three  generations  of  her  sons,  and 
quickened  in  the  blood  of  the  unreckoned  genera- 
tions of  the  past  —  an  ideal,  shall  I  say,  akin  to 
that  of  the  prophet  of  the  French  Revolution,  Did- 
erot, " elargissez  Dienl" — to  liberate  God  within 
men's  hearts,  so  that  man's  life  shall  be  free,  of  it- 
self and  in  itself,  to  set  towards  the  lodestar  of  its 
being,  harmony  with  the  Divine.  And  it  brings  to 
the  peoples  of  Africa,  to  whom  the  coming  of  this 
army  is  for  good  or  evil  so  eventful,  so  fraught  with 
consequences  to  the  future  ages  of  their  race,  some 
assurance  from  the  designs,  the  purposes  which  this 
island  has  in  early  or  recent  times  pursued,  that  the 
same  or  yet  loftier  purposes  shall  guide  us  still ; 


ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  IMPERIALISM    19 

whilst  to  the  nations  whose  eyes  are  fastened  upon 
that  army  it  offers  some  cause  for  gratulation  or  re- 
lief, that  in  this  problem,  whose  vast  issues,  vista 
receding  behind  vista,  men  so  wide  apart  as  Napo- 
leon I  and  Victor  Hugo  pondered  spell-bound ;  that 
in  this  arena  where  conflicts  await  us  beside  which, 
in  renunciation,  triumph,  or  despair,  this  of  to-day 
seems  but  a  toy ;  that  in  this  crisis,  a  crisis  in  which 
the  whole  earth  is  concerned,  the  Empire  has  inter- 
vened, definitely  and  for  all  time,  which  more  than 
any  other  known  to  history  represents  humanity,  and 
in  its  dealings  with  race  distinctions  and  religious 
distinctions  does  more  than  any  other  represent  the 
principle  that  "  God  has  made  of  one  blood  all  the 
nations  of  the  earth." 

§    3.       THE   MANDATE   OF  DESTINY 

In  these  two  armies  then,  and  in  what  each  brings 
to  the  vanquished,  the  contrast  between  two  forms 
of  Imperialism  outlines  itself  sharply.  The  earlier, 
that  of  the  ancient  world,  little  modified  by  medi- 
seval  experiments,  limits  itself  to  concrete,  tqjsxter- 
nal  justice,  imparted  to  subject  peoples  from  above, 
from  some  beneficent  monarch  or  tyrant;  the  later, 
the  Imperialism  of  the  modern  world,  the  Imperial- 
ism of  Britain,  has  for  its  end  the  larger  freedom, 
the  higher  justice  whose  root  is  in  the  soul  not  of 
the  ruler  but  of  the  race.  The  former  nowhere 
looks  beyond  justice ;  this  sees  in  justice  but  a  means 
to  an  end.  It  aims  through  freedom  to  secure  that 


20  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

men  shall  find  justice,  not  as  a  gift  from  Britain, 
but  as  they  find  the  air  around  them,  a  natural  pres- 
ence. Justice  so  conceived  is  not  an  end  in  itself, 
but  a  condition  of  man's  being.  In  the  ancient 
world,  government  ever  tends  to  identify  itself  with 
the  State,  even  when,  as  in  Rome  or  Persia,  that 
State  is  imperial.  In  the  modern,  government  with 
concrete  justice,  civic  freedom  as  its  aims,  ever 
tends  to  become  but  a  function  of  the  State  whose 
ideal  is  higher. 

The  vision  of  the  De  Monarchic*  —  one  God,  one 
law,  one  creed,  one  emperor,  semi-divine,  far-off, 
immaculate,  guiding  the  round  world  in  justice,  the 
crowning  expression  of  Rome's  ideal  by  a  great  poet 
whose  imagination  was  on  fire  with  the  memory  of 
Rome's  grandeur  —  does  but  describe  after  all  an 
exterior  justice,  a  justice  showered  down  upon  men 
by  a  beneficent  tyrant,  a  Frederick  I,  inspired  by 
the  sagas  of  Siegfried  and  of  Charlemagne,  or  the 
second  Frederick,  the  "  Wonder  of  the  World  "  to 
the  thirteenth  century,  and  ever  alluring,  yet  ever 
eluding,  the  curiosity  of  the  nineteenth ;  or  a  Henry 
VII,  ineffectual  and  melancholic.  Such  "  justice  " 
passes  easily  by  its  own  excess  into  the  injustice 
which  dispatches  Alva's  army  or  finds  bizarre  ex- 
pression in  the  phrase  of  "  le  Roi  soleil," — "  The 
State?  I  am  the  State."  The  ideal  of  modern  life, 
the  ideal  of  which  Britain  is  the  supreme  representa- 
tive amongst  existing  empires,  starting  not_  from  jus- 
tice but;  from  freedom^  may  be  traced  beyond  the 


THE  MANDATE  OF  DESTINY         21 

French  Revolution  and  the  Reformation,  back  even 
to  the  command  "  Render  unto  Caesar."  That 
word  thrust  itself  like  a  wedge  into  the  ancient  unity 
of  the  State  and  God.  It  carried  with  it  not  merely 
the  doom  of  the  Roman  Empire,  but  of  the  whole 
fabric  of  the  ancient  relations  of  State  and  Individ- 
ual. Yet  Sophocles  felt  the  injustice  of  this  justice 
four  centuries  before,  as  strongly  as  Tertullian,  the 
Marat  of  dying  Rome,  felt  it  two  centuries  after 
that  command  was  uttered. 

Such  then  is  the  character  of  the  ideal.  And  in 
the  resolution  as  a  people,  for  the  furtherance  of 
its  great  ends,  to  do  all,  to  suffer  all,  as  Rome  re- 
solved, lies  what  may  be  described  as  the  destiny  of 
Imperial  Britain.  None  more  impressive,  none  lof- 
tier has  ever  arisen  within  the  consciousness  of  a 
people.  And  to  England  through  all  her  territories 
and  seas  the  moment  for  that  resolution  is  now.  If 
ever  there  came  to  any  city,  race,  or  nation,  clear 
and  high  through  the  twilight  spaces,  across  the 
abysses  where  the  stars  wander,  the  call  of  its  fate, 
it  is  NOW!  There  is  an  Arab  fable  of  the  white 
steed  of  Destiny,  with  the  thunder  mane  and  the 
hoofs  of  lightning,  that  to  every  man,  as  to  every 
people,  comes  once.  Glory  to  that  man,  to  that 
race,  who  dares  to  mount  it!  And  that  steed,  is 
it  not  nearing  England  now?  Hark!  the  ringing 
of  its  hoofs  is  borne  to  our  ears  on  the  blast! 

Temptations  to  fly  from  this  decision,  to  shrink 
from  the  great  resolve,  to  temporise,  to  waver,  have 


22  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

at  such  moments  ever  presented  themselves  to  men 
and  to  nations.  Even  now  they  present  themselves, 
manifold,  subtly  disguised,  insidiously  persuasive, 
as  exhortations  to  humility,  for  instance,  as  appeals 
to  the  deference  due  to  the  opinion  of  other  States. 
But  in  the  faith,  the  undying  faith,  that  it,  and  it 
alone,  can  perform  the  fate-appointed  task,  dwells 
the  virtue  of  every  imperial  race  that  History 
knows.  How  shall  any  empire,  any  state,  conscious 
of  its  destiny,  imitate  the  self-effacement  prescribed 
to  the  individual  — "  In  honour  preferring  one  an- 
other "  ?  This  in  an  imperial  State  were  the  pre- 
monition of  decay,  the  presage  of  death. 

But  there  is  one  great  pledge,  a  solemn  warrant  of 
her  resolve  to  swerve  not,  to  blench  not,  which  Eng- 
land has  already  offered.  That  pledge  is  Elands- 
laagte,  it  is  Enslin,  the  Modder,  and  the  bloody 
agony  of  Magersfontein.  For  it  grows  ever  clearer 
as  month  succeeds  month  that  it  is  by  the  invincible 
force  of  this  ideal,  this  of  Imperial  Britain,  that  we 
have  waged  this  war  and  fought  these  battles  in 
South  Africa.  If  it  be  not  for  this  cause,  it  is  for 
a  cause  so  false  to  all  the  past,  from  Agincourt  to 
Balaklava,  that  it  has  but  to  be  named  to  carry  with 
it  its  own  refutation.  There  is  a  kind  of  tragic  ele- 
vation in  the  very  horror  of  the  march  of  Attila, 
of  Ginghis  Khan,  or  of  Timour.  But  to  assemble 
a  host  from  all  the  quarters  of  this  wide  Empire, 
to  make  Africa,  as  it  were,  the  rendezvous  of  the 
earth,  for  the  sake  of  a  few  gold,  a  few  diamond 


THE  MANDATE  OF  DESTINY         23 

mines,  what  language  can  equal  a  design  thus  base, 
ambition  thus  sordid?  And  if  we  call  to  memory 
the  dead  who  have  fallen  in  this  war,  those  who  at 
its  beginning  were  with  us  in  the  radiance  of  their 
manhood,  but  now,  still  in  the  grave,  all  traces  of 
life's  majesty  not  yet  gone  from  their  brow,  and 
if  those  dead  lips  ask  us,  "  Why  are  we  thus?  And 
in  what  cause  have  we  died  ?  "  were  it  not  a  hard 
thing  for  Britain,  for  Europe,  indeed  for  all  the 
world,  if  the  only  answer  we  could  make  to  the 
question  should  be,  "  It  is  for  the  mines,  it  is  for  the 
mines !  "  No  man  can  believe  that ;  no  man,  save 
him  whose  soul  faction  has  sealed  in  impenetrable 
night!  The  imagination  recoils  revolted,  terror- 
struck.  Great  enterprises  have  ever  attracted  some 
base  adherents,  and  these  by  their  very  presence  seem 
to  sully  every  achievement  recorded  of  nations  or 
cities.  But  to  arraign  the  fountain  and  the  end  of 
the  high  action  because  of  this  baser  alloy  ?  To  im- 
peach on  this  account  all  the  valour,  all  the  wisdom 
long  approved  ?  Reply  is  impossible ;  the  thing  sim- 
ply is  not  British. 

Indeed,  in  very  deed,  it  is  for  another  cause,  and 
for  another  ideal  —  an  ideal  that,  gathering  to  itself 
down  the  ages  the  ardour  of  their  battle-cries,  falls 
in  all  the  splendour  of  a  new  hope  about  the  path  of 
England  now.  For  this  these  men  have  died,  from 
the  first  battle  of  the  war  to  that  fought  yesterday. 
And  it  is  this  knowledge,  this  certainty,  which  gives 
us  heart  to  acquiesce,  as  each  of  us  is  compelled  to 


24  WHAT  IS  IMPERIALISM? 

acquiesce,  in  the  presence  of  that  army  in  South 
Africa.  They  have  fallen,  fighting  for  all  that  has 
made  our  race  great  in  the  past,  for  this,  the  man- 
date of  destiny  to  our  race  in  the  future.  They 
have  fallen,  those  youths,  self -devoted  to  death,  with 
a  courage  so  impetuous,  casting  their  youth  away  as 
if  it  were  a  thing  of  no  account,  a  careless  trifle, 
life  and  all  its  promises !  But  yesterday  in  the  flush 
of  strength  and  beauty;  to-night  the  winds  from 
tropic  seas  stir  the  grass  above  their  graves,  the 
southern  stars  look  down  upon  the  place  of  their 
rest.  For  this  ideal  they  have  died — "  in  their 
youth,"  to  borrow  the  phrase  of  a  Greek  orator, 
"  torn  from  us  like  the  spring  from  the  year." 

Fallen  in  this  cause,  in  battle  for  this  ideal,  be- 
hold them  advance  to  greet  the  great  dead  who  fell 
in  the  old  wars!  See,  through  the  mists  of  time, 
Valhalla,  its  towers  and  battlements,  uplift  them- 
selves, and  from  their  places  the  phantoms  of  the 
mighty  heroes  of  all  ages  rise  to  greet  these  English 
youths  who  enter  smiling,  the  blood  yet  trickling 
from  their  wounds!  Behold,  Achilles  turns,  un- 
bending from  his  deep  disdain ;  Rustum,  Timoleon, 
Hannibal,  and  those  of  later  days  who  fell  at  Brun- 
anburh,  Senlac,  and  Trafalgar,  turn  to  welcome  the 
dead  whom  we  have  sent  thither  as  the  avant-garde 
of  our  faith,  that  in  this  cause  is  our  destiny,  in 
this  the  mandate  of  our  fate. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  DEVELOPMENT  OF  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

MAN'S  path  lies  between  the  living  and  the  dead, 
and  History  seems  to  move  between  two  hemi- 
spheres that  everywhere  touch  yet  unite  nowhere, 
the  Past,  shadowy,  vast,  illimitable,  that  at  each  mo- 
ment ends,  the  Future  not  less  shadowy,  vast,  il- 
limitable, that  at  each  moment  begins.  The  ques- 
tion, "What  is  History?"  is  but  the  question, 
"What  is  Life?"  transferred  from  the  domain  of 
the  Present  to  the  domain  of  the  Past.  To  under- 
stand the  whorl  of  a  shell  would  require  an  intelli- 
gence that  has  grasped  the  universe,  and  for  the 
knowledge  of  the  history  of  an  hour  the  aeons  of 
the  fathomless  past  were  not  excessive  as  a  prelim- 
inary study.  Massillon's  injunction,  "  Look  thou 
within,"  does  but  discover  to  our  view  in  nerve-cen- 
tres, in  emotional  or  in  instinctive  tendencies,  hiero- 
glyphics graven  by  long  vanished  ancestral  genera- 
tions. But  Nature,  to  guard  man  from  despair,  has 
fashioned  him  a  contemporary  of  the  remotest  ages. 
The  beam  of  light,  however  far  into  space  it  travel, 
yet  remains  unsevered  from  the  orb  whence  it 
sprang,  and  Man,  the  youngest-born  of  Time,  is  yet 
one  with  the  source  whence  he  came.  As  age  flies 

25 


26  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

past  after  age,  the  immanence  of  the  Divine  grows 
more,  not  less  insistent.  Each  moment  indeed  is 
rooted  in  the  dateless  past  inextricably;  but  to  its 
interpretation  the  soul  comes,  a  wanderer  from  aeons 
not  less  distant,  laden  with  the  presaging  memories, 
experiences,  innumerable  auxiliaries  unseen,  which 
the  past  itself  has  supplied  for  its  own  conquest  or 
that  of  the  present.  Trusting  to  these,  man  is  un- 
moved at  the  narrowness  of  his  conscious  sover- 
eignty, as  the  eye  is  unmoved  at  the  narrow  bounds 
that  hedge  its  vision,  and  finds  peace  where  he 
would  otherwise  have  found  but  despair. 

Those  affinities,  those  intimate  relations  of  the 
past  and  present,  are  the  basis  of  speculative  poli- 
tics. A  judgment  upon  a  movement  in  the  present, 
an  opinion  hazarded  upon  the  curve  which  a  state, 
a  nation,  or  an  empire  will  describe  in  the  future, 
is  of  little  value  unless  from  a  wide  enough  survey 
the  clear  sanction  of  the  past  can  be  alleged  in  its 
support. 

Assuming  therefore  that  in  the  ideal  delineated 
above  we  have  the  ideal  of  a  race  destined  to  Em- 
pire, and  at  last  across  the  centuries  grown  con- 
scious of  that  destiny,  the  question  confronts  us  - 
is  it  possible  out  of  the  past,  not  surveying  it  from 
the  vantage-ground  of  the  present  merely,  but  as 
it  were  living  into  the  present  from  the  past,  to  fore- 
shadow the  rise  of  this  consciousness?  Or  turning 
back  in  the  light  of  this  consciousness  to  the  past, 
is  there  offered  by  the  past  a  justification  of  this  in- 


PAST  AND  PRESENT  27 

terpretation  of  the  present,  of  this  movement  styled 
"  Imperialism  "  ? 

The  heart  of  the  matter  lies  in  the  transformation 
of  mediaeval  patriotism  into  modern  imperialism,  in 
the  evolution  or  development  which  out  of  the  Eng- 
lishman of  the  earlier  centuries  has  produced  the 
Englishman  of  the  present,  moved  by  other  and 
higher  political  ends.  Is  there  any  incident  or  se- 
ries of  incidents  in  our  history,  of  magnitude 
enough  profoundly  to  affect  the  national  conscious- 
ness, to  which  we  may  look  for  the  causes,  or  for 
the  formative  spirit,  of  this  change?  And  in  their 
effect  upon  the  national  consciousness  of  Britain 
have  these  incidents  followed  any  law  traceable  in 
other  nations  or  empires? 

§    I.       OF   THE   ACTION    OF   STATES   AND   OF 
INDIVIDUALS 

There  is  a  kind  of  criticism  directed  against  poli- 
tics which,  year  by  year  or  month  by  month,  makes 
the  discovery  that  between  the  code  which  regulates 
the  action  of  States  and  the  code  which  regulates 
the  actions  of  individuals  divergencies  or  contradic- 
tions are  constantly  arising.  War  violates  the  or- 
dinances of  religion;  diplomacy,  the  ordinances  of 
truth;  expediency,  those  of  justice.  And  the  con- 
clusion is  drawn  that  whatever  be  the  softening  in- 
fluences of  civilisation  upon  the  relations  of  private 
life,  within  the  sphere  of  politics,  barbarism,  bru- 
tally aggressive  or  craftily  obsequious,  reigns  un- 


28  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

disturbed.  Era  succeeds  era,  faiths  rise  and  set, 
statesmen  and  thinkers,  prophets  and  martyrs,  act, 
speak,  suffer,  die,  and  are  seen  no  more ;  but,  scorn- 
ful of  all  their  strivings,  the  great  Anarch  still 
stands  sullen  and  unaltered  by  the  centuries.  And 
these  critics,  undeterred  by  Burke's  hesitation  to 
"  draw  up  an  indictment  against  a  whole  nation," 
make  bold  to  arraign  Humanity  itself,  charging 
alike  the  present  and  the  past  with  perpetual  self- 
contradiction,  an  hypocrisy  that  never  dies. 

Underlying  this  impeachment  of  Nations  and 
States  in  their  relations  to  each  other  the  assump- 
tion at  once  reveals  itself,  that  every  State,  whether 
civic,  national,  or  imperial,  is  but  an  aggregate  of 
the  individuals  that  compose  it,  and  should  accord- 
ingly be  regulated  in  its  actions  by  the  same  laws, 
the  same  principles  of  conduct,  as  control  the  ac- 
tions of  individuals.  And  he  therefore  is  the  great- 
est statesman  who  constrains  the  State  as  nearly  as 
possible  into  the  line  prescribed  to  the  individual  - 
whatever  ruin  and  disaster  attend  the  rash  adven- 
ture! The  perplexity  is  old  as  the  embassy  of  Car- 
neades,  young  as  the  self-communings  of  Mazzini. 

Yet  certain  terms,  current  enough  amongst  those 
who  deliver  or  at  least  acquiesce  in  this  indictment 
(such  as  "  Organism  "  or  "  Organic  Unity  "  as  ap- 
plied to  the  State),  might  of  themselves  suggest  a 
reconsideration  of  the  axiom  that  the  State  is  but 
an  aggregate  of  individuals.  The  unity  of  an  or- 
ganism, though  arising  from  die  constituent  parts, 


STATES  AND  INDIVIDUALS  29 

is  yet  distinct  from  the  unity  of  those  parts.  Even 
in  chemistry  the  laws  which  regulate  the  molecule 
are  not  the  laws  which  regulate  the  constituent 
atoms.  And  in  that  highest  and  most  complex  of 
all  unities,  the  State,  we  find,  as  we  might  expect  to 
find,  laws  of  another  range,  and  a  remoter  purport, 
obscurer  to  us  in  their  origins,  more  mysterious  in 
their  tendencies,  than  the  laws  which  meet  us  in  the 
unities  which  compose  it.  In  the  region  in  which 
States  act  and  interact,  whether  with  Plato  we  re- 
gard it  as  more  divine,  or  as  Rousseau  passionately 
insists,  as  lower,  the  laws  which  are  valid  must  at 
least  be  other  than  the  laws  valid  amongst  individ- 
uals. The  orbit  described  by  the  life  of  the  State 
is  of  a  wider,  a  mightier  sweep  than  the  orbit  of 
the  separate  life.  The  life  which  the  individual  sur- 
renders to  the  State  is  not  one  with  the  life  which 
he  receives  in  return;  yet  even  of  this  interchange 
no  analysis  has  yet  laid  bare  the  conditions. 

These  considerations  are  not  designed  to  imply 
that  in  the  relations  between  States  the  code  of  in- 
dividual ethics  is  necessarily  annulled;  but  to  sug- 
gest that  the  laws  which  regulate  the  actions  or  the 
suffering  of  States,  as  such,  have  too  peremptorily 
been  assumed  to  be,  by  nature  and  the  ground-plan 
of  the  universe,  identical  with  the  laws  of  individual 
life,  its  actions  or  its  sufferings,  and  that  it  is  some- 
thing of  a  petitio  principii,  in  the  present  stage  of 
our  knowledge,  to  judge  the  one  by  the  standards 
applicable  only  to  the  other. 


30  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

The  profoundest  students  of  the  actions  of  States 
have  in  all  times  been  aware,  not  of  the  fixed  an- 
tagonism, but  of  the  essential  distinction,  between 
the  two  codes.  Every  principle  of  Machiavelli  is 
implicit  in  Thucydides,  and  Sulla,  whom  Montes- 
quieu selects  as  the  supreme  type  of  Roman  gran- 
deur, does  but  follow  principles  which  reappear  in 
the  politics  of  an  Innocent  III  or  a  Richelieu,  a 
Cromwell  or  an  Oxenstiern.5  The  loss  of  Sulla's 
Commentaries*  is  irreparable  as  the  loss  of  the  fifth 
book  of  the  Annals  of  Tacitus  or  the  burnt  Memoirs 
of  Shaftesbury;  in  the  literature  of  politics  it  is  a 
disaster  without  a  parallel.  What  Sulla  felt  as  a 
first,  most  living  impulse  appears  in  later  times  as 
a  colder,  a  critical  judgment  It  is  thus  that  it  pre- 
sents itself  to  Machiavelli,  not  the  writer  of  that 
jeu  d' esprit,  II  Principe,  perplexing  as  Hamlet,  and 
as  variously  interpreted,  but  the  author  of  the 
stately  periods  of  the  I  stone  and  the  Discorsi,  the 

*  Goethe  asserts  that  Spinozism  transmuted  into  a  creed  by 
analytic  reflection  is  simply  Machiavellism. 

•  The  twenty-two  books  of  Sulla's  Memoirs,  rcntm  suantm 
gtsiarttm  commemtaru,  were  dedicated  to  his  friend  Lucullus; 
they  were  still  in  existence  in  the  time  of  Tacitus  and  Plu- 
tarch, though  the  fragments  which  now  remain  serve  but  to 
mock  us  with  regret  for  the  loss.    Of  Sulla's  verses  —  like 
many  cultured  Romans  of  tint  age,  the  conqueror  of  Caius 
Marius  amused  his  leisure  with  writing  Greek  epigrams  — 
exactly  so  much  has  survived  as  of  the  troubadour  songs  of 
Richard  I  of  England,  or  of  Frederick  II  of  Jerusalem  and 
Sicily.    Sulla's  remarks  on  the  young  Caesar  is  for  the  youth 
of  Cains  Julius  as  illuminating  as  Richelieu's  on  Conde  or  of 

Paoti  s  on  Bonaparte. 


STATES  AND  INDIVIDUALS  31 

haughtiest  of  speculators,  and  in  politics  the  pro- 
foundest  of  modern  thinkers.  M.  Sorel  encounters 
little  difficulty  in  proving  that  the  diplomacy  of  Eu- 
rope in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  is 
but  an  exposition  of  the  principles  of  the  Discorsi; 
Frederick  the  Great,  who  started  his  literary  activ- 
ity by  the  refutation  of  the  Prince,  began  and  ended 
his  political  career  as  if  his  one  aim  were  to  illus- 
trate the  maxims  that  in  the  rashness  of  inexperi- 
ence he  had  condemned ;  and  within  living  memory, 
the  vindicator  of  Oliver  Cromwell  found  in  the  com- 
position of  the  same  Frederick's  history  the  solace 
and  the  torment  of  his  last  and  greatest  years. 

To  press  this  inquiry  further  would  be  foreign  to 
the  present  subject;  enough  has  been  said  to  indi- 
cate that  from  whatever  deep  unity  they  may  spring, 
the  laws  which  determine  the  life  of  a  State,  as 
displayed  in  History,  are  not  identical  with  the  laws 
of  individual  life.  The  region  of  Art,  however, 
seems  to  offer  a  neutral  territory,  where  it  is  pos- 
sible to  obtain  some  perception,  or  Ahnung  as  a  Ger- 
man would  say,  of  the  operation  in  the  life  of  States 
of  a  law  which  bears  directly  upon  the  problem  be- 
fore us. 

§  2.       THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  AS  APPLIED  TO  HISTORY 

In  the  history  of  past  empires,  their  rise  and 
decline,  in  the  history  of  this  Empire  of  Britain 
from  the  coming  of  Cerdic  and  Cynric  to  the 
present  momentous  crisis,  there  reveals  itself  a 


32  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

force,  an  influence,  not  without  analogy  to  the  influ- 
ence ascribed  by  Aristotle  to  Attic  Tragedy.  The 
function  of  Tragedy  he  defined  as  the  purification 
of  the  soul  by  Compassion  and  by  Terror  —  &'  cAe'ou 
K<U  <t>6pov  Kd6ap<n<s.7  Critics  and  commentators  still 
debate  the  precise  meaning  of  the  definition ;  but  my 
interpretation,  or  application  of  it  to  the  present  in- 
quiry is  this,  that  by  compassion  and  terror  the  soul 
is  exalted  above  compassion  and  terror,  is  lifted 
above  the  touch  of  pity  or  of  fear,  attaining  to  a 
state  like  that  portrayed  by  Dante  — 

lo  son  fatta  da  Dio,  sua  merce,  tale, 

Che  la  vostra  miseria  non  mi  tange 

Ne  fiamma  d'  esto  incendio  non  m'  assale.8 

In  the  tragic  hour  the  soul  is  thus  vouchsafed  a 
deeper  vision,  discerns  a  remoter,  serener,  mightier 
ideal  which  henceforth  it  pursues  unalterably,  un- 
deviatingly,  as  if  swept  on  by  a  law  of  Nature  itself. 
Sorrow,  thus  conceived,  is  the  divinest  thought 
within  the  Divine  mind,  and  when  manifested  in 
that  most  complex  of  unities,  the  consciousness  of 
a  State,  the  soul  of  a  race,  it  assumes  proportions 
that  by  their  very  vagueness  inspire  but  a  deeper 

7  Aristotle  refers  only  to  the  effect  on  the  spectators ;  but 
the  continued  existence  of  the  State  makes  it  at  once  actor 
and  spectator  in  the  tragedy.  The  transforming  power  is  thus 
more  intimate  and  profound. 

8  "  God  in  His  mercy  such  created  me 
"  That  misery  of  yours  attains  me  not, 
"  Nor  any  flame  assails  me  of  this  burning." 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  33 

awe,  presenting  a  study  the  loftiest  that  can  engage 
the  human  intellect. 

Genius  for  empire  in  a  race  supplies  that  impres- 
siveness  with  which  a  heroic  or  royal  origin  invests 
the  protagonist  of  a  tragedy,  an  Agamemnon  or  a 
Theseus.  Hence,  though  traceable  in  all,  the  opera- 
tion of  this  law,  analogous  to  the  law  of  Tragedy, 
displays  itself  in  the  history  of  imperial  cities  or  na- 
tions in  grander  and  more  imposing  dimensions. 
Nowhere,  for  instance,  are  its  effects  exhibited  in 
a  more  impressive  manner  than  in  the  fall  of  Im- 
perial Athens  —  most  poignantly  perhaps  in  that 
hour  of  her  history  which  transforms  the  char- 
acter of  Athenian  politics,  when  amid  the  happy 
tumult  of  the  autumn  vintage,  the  choric  song,  the 
procession,  the  revel  of  the  Oschophoria,  there  came 
a  rumour  of  the  disaster  at  Syracuse,  which,  swiftly 
silenced,  started  to  life  again,  a  wild  surmise,  then 
panic,  and  the  dread  certainty  of  ruin.  That  hour 
was  but  the  essential  agony  of  a  soul-conflict  which, 
affecting  a  generation,  marks  the  transformation  of 
the  Athens  of  Kimon  and  Ephialtes,  of  Kleon  and 
Kritias,  into  the  Athens  9  of  Plato  and  Isocrates,  of 

9  In  illustration  of  this  position  a  contrast  might  be  drawn 
between  the  policy  of  Athens  in  Melos,  as  set  forth  by  Thucyd- 
ides  in  the  singular  dialogue  of  the  fifth  book,  and  the  part 
assigned  to  Justice  by  a  writer  equally  impersonal,  grave,  and 
unimpassioned  —  the  author  of  the  Politics  — in  the  recur- 
rence throughout  that  work  of  such  phrases  as  "  The  State 
which  is  founded  on  Justice  alone  can  stand."  "  Man  when 
perfected  (reXewfcV)  is  the  noblest  thing  that  lives,  but  sep- 


34  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

Demosthenes  and  Phocion.  In  the  writings  of  such 
men,  in  their  speculations  upon  politics,  one  pervad- 
ing desire  encounters  us,  alike  in  the  grave  serenity 
of  the  Laws,  the  impassioned  vehemence  of  the 
Crown,  in  the  measured  cadences  of  the  Panegyric, 
the  effort  to  lead  Athens  towards  some  higher  enter- 
prise, to  secure  for  Athens  and  for  Hellas  some 
uniting  power,  civic  or  imperial,  another  empire 
than  that  which  fell  in  Sicily,  and  moved  by  a  loftier 
ideal.  The  serious  admiration  of  Thucydides  for 
Sparta,  the  ironic  admiration  of  Socrates,  Plato's 
appeals  to  Crete  and  to  ancient  Lacedsemon,  these 
are  not  renegadism,  not  disloyalty  to  Athens,  but 
fidelity  to  another  Athens  than  that  of  Kleon  or  of 
Kritias.  History  never  again  beheld  such  a  band 
of  pamphleteers  !  10 


arated  from  justice  (xuPl<r9e"  vo^ov  Kal  M/CTJS)  the  basest  of 
all."  "  Virtue  cannot  be  the  ruin  of  those  who  possess  it,  nor 
Justice  the  destruction  of  a  City."  The  tragedies  of  Sopho- 
cles that  are  of  a  later  date  than  413  B.C.  betray  an  attitude 
towards  political  life  distinct  from  that  which  characterises 
his  earlier  works.  The  shading-in  of  the  life  of  the  State  into 
that  of  the  individual  defies  analysis,  and  it  were  hazardous  to 
affirm  what  traits  of  thought  ought  to  be  referred  to  the  genius 
of  the  State  as  distinct  from  the  individual;  but  it  appears  as 
difficult  to  imagine  before  Syracuse,  the  vehement  insistence 
upon  Justice,  the  impassioned  idealisation  which  characterise 
Plato,  Socrates,  and  Demosthenes,  as  it  is  difficult  after  Syra- 
cuse to  imagine  the  political  temper  of  a  Pericles  or  an  Anax- 
agoras. 

10  The  Greek  orators  and  philosophers  of  the  fourth  century 
B.C.  had  before  them  a  problem  not  without  resemblances  to 
that  which  confronted  the  Hebrew  prophets  of  Judaea  in  the 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  35 

In  the  history  of  Rome,  during  the  second  war 
against  Carthage,  a  similar  moment  occurs.  After 
Cannae,  Rome  lies  faint  from  haemorrhage,  but  rises 
a  new  city.  The  Rome  of  Gracchus  and  of  Drusus 
is  greater  than  the  Rome  of  the  Decemvirs.  It 
is  not  the  inevitable  change  which  centuries  bring; 
another,  a  higher  purpose  has  implanted  itself 
within  Rome's  life  as  a  State.  The  Rome  of  Grac- 
chus and  of  Drusus  announces  Imperial  Rome,  the 
Rome  of  the  Csesars. 

So  in  the  history  of  Islam,  from  the  anguish  and 
struggles  of  the  eighth  century,  the  Islam  of  Haroun 
and  Mutasim  arises,  imparting  even  to  dying  Per- 
sia, as  it  were,  a  second  prime,  by  the  wisdom  and 
imaginative  justice  of  its  sway. 

In  the  development  of  Imperial  Britain,  the  con- 
flict which  in  the  life-history  of  these  two  States, 
Athens  and  Rome,  has  its  essential  agony  at  Cannae 
or  at  Syracuse,  the  conflict  which  affects  the  national 

seventh.  Even  their  most  speculative  writings  had  a  practical 
end,  a  goal  which  they  considered  attainable  by  Hellas,  or  by 
Athens.  The  disappearance  of  Socrates  from  the  Laws,  the 
increased  seriousness  of  the  treatment  of  Sparta  and  of  Crete, 
the  original  and  paragon  of  Lacedaemon,  may  indicate  a  con- 
cession to  the  prejudices  of  a  generation  which  had  grown  up 
since  Aegospotami,  and  a  last  effort  by  Plato  to  bring  his 
teaching  home  to  the  common  life  of  Athens  and  of  Hellas. 
So  in  the  England  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  political 
writings  of  Bacon  and  Hobbes,  of  Milton  and  Harrington, 
though  speculative  in  form,  are  most  practical  in  their  aims. 
Hobbes'  first  literary  effort,  indeed,  his  version  of  Thucydides, 
is  planned  as  a  warning  to  England  against  civil  discord  and 
its  ills.  This  was  in  1628 — 'fatal  date! 


36  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

consciousness  as  the  hour  of  tragic  insight  affects 
the  individual  life,  finds  its  parallel  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  After  the  short-lived  glory  of  Agincourt 
and  the  vain  coronation  at  Paris,  humiliation  fol- 
lows humiliation,  calamity  follows  calamity.  The 
empire  purchased  by  the  war  of  a  century  is  lost  in  a 
day;  and  England's  chivalry,  as  if  stung  to  madness 
by  the  magnitude  of  the  disaster,  turns  its  mutilating 
swords,  like  Paris  after  Sedan,  against  itself.  The 
havoc  of  civil  war  prolongs  the  rancour  and  the 
shame  of  foreign  defeat,  so  that  Rheims,  Chatillon, 
Wake-field,  Barnet,  and  Tewkesbury,  with  other  less 
remembered  woes,  seem  like  moments  in  one  long 
tempest  of  fiery  misery  that  breaks  over  England, 
stilled  at  last  in  the  desperate  lists  at  Bosworth. 

This  period  neglected,  perhaps  wisely  neglected, 
by  the  political  historian,  is  yet  the  period  to  which 
we  must  turn  for  the  secret  sources  of  that  revolu- 
tion in  its  political  character  which,  furthered  by 
the  incidents  that  fortune  reserved  for  her,  has  grad- 
ually fashioned  out  of  the  England  of  the  Angevins 
the  Imperial  Britain  of  to-day. 

In  England  it  is  possible  to  trace  the  operation 
of  this  transforming  power,  which  I  have  compared 
to  the  transforming  power  of  tragedy,  in  a  very 
complete  manner.  It  reveals  itself,  for  instance,  in 
two  different  modes  or  aspects,  which,  for  the  sake 
of  clearness,  may  be  dealt  with  separately.  In  the 
first  of  these  aspects,  deeply  and  permanently  af- 
fecting the  national  consciousness,  which  as  we  have 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  37 

seen  is  distinct  from  the  sum  of  the  units  composing 
it,  the  law  of  tragedy  appears  as  the  influence  of 
suffering,  of  "  terror  "  in  the  mystic  transcendental 
sense  of  the  word,  of  reverent  fear,  yet  with  it, 
serene  and  dauntless  courage.  This  influence  now 
makes  itself  felt  in  English  politics,  in  English  re- 
ligion, in  English  civic  life. 

If  we  consider  the  history  of  England  prior  to 
this  epoch,  it  might  at  first  sight  appear  as  if  here 
were  a  race  emphatically  not  destined  for  empire. 
Not  in  her  dealings  with  conquered  France,  not  in 
Ireland,  not  in  Scotland,  does  England  betray,  in 
her  national  consciousness,  any  sympathy  even  with 
that  aspiration  towards  concrete  justice  which 
marks  the  imperial  character  of  Persia  and  of  Rome. 
England  seems  fated  to  add  but  one  record  more  to 
the  tedious  story  of  unintelligent  tyrant  States, 
illustrating  the  theme  —  v(3pts  fareta  rvpawov  — 
"  insolence  begets  the  tyrant !  "  Even  to  her  con- 
temporary, Venice,  the  mind  turns  from  England 
with  relief ;  whilst  in  the  government  of  Khorassan 
by  the  earlier  Abbassides  we  encounter  an  adminis- 
tration singularly  free  from  the  defects  that  vitiate 
Imperial  Rome  at  its  zenith.  And  now  in  the  days 
of  the  first  Tudors  all  England's  efforts  at  empire 
have  come  to  nothing.  Knut's  empire  sinks  with 
him;  Norman  and  Plantagenet  follow;  but  of  their 
imperial  policy  the  dying  words  of  Mary  Tudor, 
"  Calais  will  be  found  graven  on  my  heart,"  form 
the  epitaph.  It  was  not  merely  the  loss  of  Calais 


38  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

that  oppressed  the  dying  Queen,  but  she  felt  in- 
stinctively, obscurely,  prophetically  that  here  was 
an  end  to  the  empire  which  her  house  had  inherited 
from  Norman  and  Plantagenet. 

But  in  the  national  consciousness,  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  State,  a  change  is  now  apparent.  As 
Athens  rose  from  Syracuse,  a  new  Athens,  as 
Rome  rose  from  Cannae,  a  new  city,  to  conquer  by 
being  conquered,  so  from  the  lost  dreams  of  em- 
pire over  France,  over  Scotland,  England  arises  a 
new  nation.  This  declares  itself  in  the  altered 
course  of  her  policy  alike  in  France,  Ireland,  and 
Scotland.  In  Ireland,  for  instance,  an  incomplete 
yet  serious  and  high-purposed  effort  is  made  to 
bring,  if  not  justice,  at  least  law  to  the  hapless  pop- 
ulation beyond  the  Pale.  Henry  VIII  again,  like 
Edward  I,  is  a  masterful  king.  In  politics,  in  con- 
structive genius,  he  even  surpasses  Edward  I.  He 
abandons  the  folly  of  an  empire  in  France,  and 
though  against  Scotland  he  achieves  a  triumph  sig- 
nal as  that  of  Edward,  he  has  no  thought  of  revert- 
ing to  the  Plantagenet  policy.  He  defeats  the  Scots 
at  Flodden ;  but  he  has  the  power  of  seeing  that  in 
spite  of  his  victory  they  are  not  defeated  at  all. 
King  James  IV  lies  dead  there,  with  all  his  earls 
around  him,  like  a  Berserker  warrior,  his  chiefs 
slain  around  him,  "  companions,"  comites  indeed, 
in  that  title's  original  meaning.  But  the  spirit  of 
the  nation  is  quickened,  not  broken,  and  Henry 
VIII,  recognising  this,  steadily  pursues  the  policy 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  39 

which  leads  to  1603,  when  these  two  peoples,  by  a 
mutual  renunciation,  both  schooled  in  misery,  and 
with  the  Hebrew  phrase,  "  Well  versed  in  suffering, 
and  in  sorrow  deeply  skilled,"  working  so  to  speak 
in  their  very  blood,  are  united.  The  Puritan  wars, 
and  the  struggle  for  an  ideal  higher  than  that  of 
nationality,  cement  the  union. 

In  the  development  of  the  life  of  a  State,  the  dis- 
tance in  time  between  causes  and  their  visible  effects 
often  makes  the  sequence  obscure  or  sink  from  sight 
altogether.  As  in  geology  the  century  is  useless 
as  a  unit  to  measure  the  periods  with  which  that 
science  deals,  and  as  in  astronomy  the  mile  is  useless 
as  a  standard  for  the  interstellar  spaces;  so  in  his- 
tory, in  tracing  the  organic  changes  within  the  con- 
scious life  of  a  State,  the  lustrum,  the  deksetis,  or 
even  the  generation,  would  sometimes  be  a  less  mis- 
leading unit  than  the  year.  The  England  of  Eliza- 
beth drew  the  first  outline  of  the  Empire  of  the  fu- 
ture; but  five  generations  were  to  pass  before  the 
Britain  of  Chatham  n  could  apply  itself  with  a  sin- 

11  The  elder  Pitt  may  be  regarded  as  the  first  great  minister 
of  the  English  people  as  distinguished  from  men  like  Thomas 
Cromwell,  Strafford,  or  Clarendon,  who  strictly  were  minis- 
ters of  the  king.  "  It  rains  gold-boxes,"  Horace  Walpole 
writes  when,  in  April,  1757,  Pitt  was  dismissed,  and  it  was 
these  tokens  of  his  popularity  with  the  merchants  of  England, 
not  the  recognition  of  his  genius  by  the  king,  which  led  to  his 
return  to  office  in  June.  The  events  of  the  period  of  four 
years  and  ten  months  during  which  this  man  was  dictator  of 
the  House  of  Commons  and  of  England  are  so  graven  on  all 
hearts  that  a  mere  enumeration  in  order  of  time  suffices  to 


40  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

gle-hearted  resolution  to  fill  that  outline  in,  and  yet 
three  other  generations  before  this  people  as  a  whole 
was  to  become  completely  conscious  of  its  high  des- 
tiny. Freedom  of  religion  and  constitutional  lib- 
erty had  to  be  placed  beyond  the  peril  of  encroach- 
ment or  overthrow,  before  the  imperial  enterprise 
could  be  unreservedly  pursued;  but  the  deferment 
of  the  task  has  nerved  rather  than  weakened  the 
energy  of  her  resolve.  Had  England  fallen  in  the 
Marlborough  wars,  she  would  have  left  a  name 
hardly  more  memorable  than  that  of  Venice  or 
Carthage,  illustrious  indeed,  but  without  a  claim  to 

recall  moving  incidents,  characters,  and  scenes  of  epic  gran- 
deur:—  December  I7th,  1756,  Pitt-Devonshire  ministry 
formed,  Highland  regiments  raised,  national  militia  organ- 
ised. 1757,  CLIVE'S  victory  at  Plassey,  June  23rd,  and  con- 
quest of  Bengal.  1758,  June  3rd,  destruction  of  forts  at  Cher- 
bourg, three  ships  of  war,  150  privateers  burned  to  the  sea- 
line  ;  November  25th,  Fort  Duquesne  captured ;  December  2pth, 
conquest  of  Goree.  1759,  "  year  of  victories  " ;  February  i6th, 
POCOCK  relieves  Madras;  May  ist,  capture  of  Guadaloupe; 
July  4th,  R.  RODNEY  at  Havre  destroys  the  flat-bottomed  Ar- 
mada; July  3ist,  WOLFE'S  repulse  at  Beaufort;  August  igth, 
BOSCAWEN  destroys  French  fleet  in  Lagos  Bay;  September 
2nd,  POCOCK  defeats  D'Ache;  September  pth,  WOLFE'S  last  let- 
ter to  Pitt ;  September  I3th,  10  A.  M.,  Plains  of  Abraham  and 
conquest  of  Canada ;  November  2Oth,  HAWKE  defeats  Conflans 
in  Quiberon  Bay,  "Lay  me  alongside  the  French  Admiral." 
1760,  January  22nd,  EYRE-COOTE  defeats  Lally  at  Wandewash, 
conquest  of  Carnatic.  1761,  January  i6th,  English  enter  Pon- 
dicherry;  Bellisle  citadel  reduced,  "Quebec  over  again,"  June 
7th;  October  5th,  PITT  resigns.  It  is  doubtful  whether,  since 
the  eleventh  century  and  Hildebrand  and  William  the  Con- 
queror, the  European  stage  has  been  occupied  simultaneously 
by  two  such  men  as  Chatham  and  the  king  of  Prussia. 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  41 

original  or  creative  Imperialism.  But  if  she  were 
to  perish  now,  it  would  be  in  the  pursuance  of  a  de- 
sign which  has  no  example  in  the  recorded  annals 
of  man. 

Similarly  in  Rome,  two  centuries  sever  the  Rome 
which  rose  from  Cannae  from  the  Rome  which  ad- 
ministered Egypt  and  Hispania.  And  in  Islam  four 
generations  languish  in  misery  before  the  true  policy 
of  the  Abbassides  displays  itself,  striking  into  the 
path  which  it  never  abandoned. 

In  England  then  the  influence  of  this  epoch  of 
tragic  insight,  and  of  its  transforming  force,  ad- 
vances imperceptibly,  unnoted  across  two  genera- 
tions, yet  the  true  sequence  of  cause  and  effect  is 
unquestionable.  The  England  which,  towards  the 
close  of  the  eighteenth  century,  presents  itself  like 
a  fate  amongst  the  peoples  of  India,  bears  within 
itself  the  wisdom  which  in  the  long  run  will  save  it 
from  the  errors,  and  turn  it  from  the  path,  which 
the  England  of  the  Plantagenets  followed  in  Ire- 
land and  in  France.  The  national  consciousness  of 
England,  stirred  to  its  depths  by  its  own  suffering, 
its  own  defeats,  its  own  humiliations,  comes  there 
in  India  within  the  influence  of  that  which  in  the 
life  of  a  State,  however  little  it  may  affect  the  indi- 
vidual life  as  such,  is  the  deepest  of  all  suffering. 
England  stands  then  in  the  presence  of  a  race  whose 
life  is  in  the  memories  of  its  past;  its  literature,  its 
arts,  its  empires  that  rise  and  dissolve  like  dreams; 
its  religions,  its  faiths,  with  all  their  strange  analo- 


42  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

gies,  dim  suggestions,  mysterious  as  a  sea  cavern 
full  of  sounds.  Hard  upon  this  experience  in  In- 
dia comes  that  of  the  farther  East,  comes  that  of 
Egypt,  that  of  Africa  in  the  nineteenth  century. 
How  can  such  a  fortune  fail  to  change  the  heart, 
the  consciousness  of  a  race,  imparting  to  it  forces 
from  these  wider  horizons,  deepening  its  own  life 
by  the  contact  with  this  manifold  environment?  He 
who  might  have  been  a  de  Mont  fort,  a  Grenville, 
or  a  Raleigh,  is  now  by  these  presences  uplifted  to 
other  ideals,  and  by  these  varied  and  complex  in- 
fluences of  suffering,  and  the  presence  of  suffering, 
raised  from  the  sphere  of  concrete  freedom  and 
concrete  justice  to  the  higher  realm  ruled  by 
imaginative  freedom,  imaginative  justice,  which 
Sophocles,  in  the  choral  ode  of  the  Oedipus,  de- 
lineates, "  the  laws  of  sublimer  range,  whose  home 
is  the  pure  ether,  whose  origin  is  God  alone." 

§  3.       THE  LAW   OF  TRAGEDY  :   ITS  SECOND  ASPECT 

The  second  mode  or  aspect  in  which  the  Law  of 
Tragedy  is  applied  to  history  reveals  itself  in  the 
life  of  a  State,  corresponds  to  the  moment  of  in- 
tenser  vision  in  the  individual  life,  when  the  soul, 
exalted  by  "  compassion  and  terror,"  discerns  the 
deeper  truth,  the  serener  ideal  which  henceforth  it 
pursues  as  if  impelled  by  the  fixed  laws  of  its  being. 
There  is  a  word  coined  by  Aristotle  which  comes 
down  the  ages  to  us,  bringing  with  it  as  it  were  the 
sound  of  the  griding  of  the  Spartan  swords  as  they 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  43 

leapt  from  their  scabbards  on  the  morning  of  Ther- 
mopylae, the  IvepytLa  Tfjs  ^m\r^ —  the  energy  of  the 
soul.  This  energy  of  the  soul  in  Aristotle  is  the 
vertu  of  Machiavelli,  the  spring  of  political  wis- 
dom, the  foundation  of  the  greatness  of  a  State. 
It  is  the  immortal  energy  which  arises  within  the 
consciousness  of  a  nation,  or  in  the  soul  of  an  indi- 
vidual, as  the  result  of  that  hour  of  insight,  of  pity, 
of  anguish,  or  contrition.  It  is  the  heroism  which 
adverse  fortune  greatens,  which  antagonism  but  ex- 
cites to  yet  sublimer  daring. 

In  Rome  this  displays  itself,  both  in  policy  and 
in  war,  in  the  centuries  that  immediately  succeed 
Cannae.  Nothing  in  history  is  more  worthy  of  at- 
tention than  the  impression  which  Rome  in  this 
epoch  of  her  history  made  upon  the  minds  of  men, 
above  all,  upon  the  mind  of  Hellas.  Its  expression 
in  Polybius  is  remarkable. 

Polybius,  if  not  one  of  the  greatest  of  thinkers  on 
politics,  has  a  place  with  the  greatest  political  his- 
torians for  all  time.  It  was  his  work  which 
Chatham  placed  in  the  hands  of  his  son,  the  younger 
Pitt,  as  the  supreme  guide  in  political  history.  Poly- 
bius has  every  inducement  to  abhor  Rome,  to  judge 
her  actions  with  jealous  and  unfriendly  eyes.  His 
father  was  the  companion  of  Philopoemen,  the 
heroic  leader  of  the  Achaean  league,  sometimes 
styled  "  the  last  of  the  Greeks,'5  the  Kosciusko  of 
the  old  world.  Polybius  himself  is  a  hostage  in 
Rome,  the  representative  of  a  defeated  race,  a  lost 


44  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

cause;  and  yet  after  years  of  study  of  his  conquer- 
ors, possessing  every  means  for  a  just  estimate  of 
their  actions  and  motives  in  the  senate,  on  the  bat- 
tlefield, in  the  intimacies  of  private  life,  the  convic- 
tion of  his  heart  becomes  that  there  in  Rome  is  a 
people  divinely  appointed  to  the  government,  not  of 
Hellas  merely,  but  of  the  whole  earth.  The  mes- 
sage of  his  history,  composed  with  scrupulous  care, 
and  a  critical  method  rare  in  that  age,  is  that  the 
very  stars  in  their  courses  fight  for  Rome,  whether 
she  wages  war  against  Greek  or  against  Barbarian, 
that  hers  is  the  dominion  of  the  earth,  the  empire 
of  the  world,  and  it  is  to  the  eternal  honour  of 
Greece  that  it  accepted  this  message.  The  Romano- 
Hellenic  empire  is  born.  Other  men  arise  both  to 
the  east  and  to  the  west  of  the  Adriatic,  in  whom 
the  Greek  and  Roman  genius  are  fused,  who  pur- 
sue the  ideal  and  amplify  or  adorn  the  thought 
which  Polybius  was  the  first  to  express  immortally. 
It  inspires  the  rhetoric  of  Cicero;  and  falls  with  a 
kind  of  glory  on  the  verse  of  Virgil  - 

Excudent  alii  spirantia  mollius  aera, 
credo  equidem,  vivos  ducent  de  marmore  vultus, 
orabunt  causas  melius,  caelique  meatus 
describent  radio  et  surgentia  sidera  dicent: 
tu  regere  imperio  populos  Romane  memento; 
hae  tibi  erunt  artes ;  pacisque  imponere  morem, 
parcere  subjectis  et  debellare  superbos. 

The  tutor  of  Hadrian  makes  it  the  informing 
idea  of  his  parallel  "  Lives,"  and  gives  form  and 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  45 

feature  to  a  grandeur  that  else  were  incredible.  It 
appears  in  the  duller  work  of  the  industrious  Dion 
Cassius,  and  in  the  fourth  century  forges  some  of 
the  noblest  verse  of  Claudian.  And  as  we  have 
seen,  it  is  enshrined  nine  centuries  after  Claudian  in 
the  splendid  eloquence  of  the  De  Monarchic^,  and 
yields  such  spent,  such  senile  life  as  they  possess,  to 
the  empires  of  Hapsburg  and  Bourbon.  Thus  this 
divine  energy,  which  after  Cannae  uplifts  Rome, 
riveting  the  sympathies  of  Polybius,  outlives  Rome 
itself,  still  controlling  the  imaginations  of  men,  un- 
til its  last  flicker  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

Where  in  the  history  of  England,  in  the  life  of 
England  as  a  State,  does  this  energy,  exalted  by  the 
hour  of  tragic  vision,  manifest  itself?  Recollect 
our  problem ;  it  is  by  analysis,  comparison,  and  con- 
trast, to  discover  what  is  the  testimony  of  the  past 
to  Britain's  title-deeds  of  empire. 

Great  races,  like  great  individuals,  resemble  the 
giants  in  the  old  myth,  the  gigantes,  the  earth-born, 
sons  of  Gaia,  who,  thrown  in  the  wrestle,  touched 
her  bosom,  and  rose  stronger  than  before  defeat. 
England  stood  this  test  in  the  sixteenth  century, 
rising  from  that  long  humiliating  war  with  France, 
that  not  less  humiliating  war  with  Scotland,  greater 
than  before  her  defeat.  This  energy  of  the  soul, 
quickened  by  tragic  insight,  displays  itself  not 
merely  in  the  Armada  struggle  but  before  that 
struggle,  under  various  forms  in  pre-Armada  Eng- 
land. 


46  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

The  spirit  of  the  sea- wolves  of  early  times,  of 
the  sailors  who  in  the  fourteenth  century  fought  at 
Sluys,  and  made  the  Levant  an  English  lake,  lives 
again  in  the  Tudor  mariners.  But  it  has  been  trans- 
formed, and  sets  towards  other  and  greater  endeav- 
ours, planning  a  mightier  enterprise.  These  adven- 
turers make  it  plain  that  on  the  high  seas  is  the  path 
of  England's  peace ;  that  the  old  policy  of  the  Plan- 
tagenet  kings,  with  all  its  heroism  and  indisputable 
greatness,  has  been  a  false  policy;  that  England's 
empire  was  not  to  be  sought  on  the  plains  of  France ; 
that  Gilbert,  Drake,  Raleigh,  and  Frobisher  have 
found  the  way  to  the  empire  which  the  Plantagenets 
blindly  groped  after. 

As  Camoens  in  Portugal  invents  a  noble  utterance 
for  the  genius  of  his  nation,  for  the  times  of  Vasco 
da  Gama  and  of  Emmanuel  the  Great,  so  this  spirit 
of  pre- Armada  England,  of  England  which  as  yet 
has  but  the  memory  of  battles  gained  and  lost  wars, 
finds  triumphant  expression  in  Marlowe  and  his 
elder  contemporaries.  Marlowe's 12  great  dialect 
seems  to  fall  naturally  from  the  lips  of  the  heroes 

12  The  same  delight  in  power,  the  same  glory  in  dominion, 
pulsate  in  the  Lusiads  and  in  the  dramas  of  Marlowe,  but 
Marlowe  was  by  far  the  wider  in  his  intellectual  range. 
Worlds  were  open  to  his  glance  beyond  the  Indies  and  Cathay 
that  were  shut  to  Camoens.  Yet  Camoens  is  a  heroic  figure. 
He  found  it  easy  to  delineate  Vasco  da  Gama;  he  had  but  to 
speak  with  his  own  voice,  and  utter  simply  his  own  heart's 
desires,  hates,  musings,  and  Vasco  da  Gama's  sister  would 
have  turned  to  listen,  thinking  she  heard  the  accents,  the  trick, 
the  very  manner  that  betrayed  the  hero. 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY 


str^^pi- 


of  Hakluyt's  Voyages,  that  work  which  sti 
presses  the  imagination  like  the  fragments  of  some 
rude  but  mighty  epic,  and  in  their  company  the  ex- 
aggeration, the  emphasis  of  Tamburlaine  are  hardly 
perceptible.  In  Martin  Frobisher,  for  instance, 
how  the  purpose  which  determines  his  career  il- 
lumines for  us  the  England  of  the  first  years  of 
Elizabeth!  Frobisher  in  early  manhood  torments 
his  heart  with  the  resentful  reflection,  "  What  a 
blockish  thing  it  has  been  on  the  part  of  England  to 
permit  the  Genoese  Columbus  to  discover  Amer- 
ica !"  That  task  was  clearly  England's!  "And 
now  there  being  nothing  great  left  to  be  done/'  the 
sole  work  Frobisher  finds  worth  attempting  is 
the  discovery  of  the  northwest  passage  to  Cathay. 
Upon  this  he  spends  the  pith  of  his  manhood  year 
by  year,  and  the  result  of  all  the  labours  of  this  sea- 
Hercules,  well !  it  is  perhaps  to  be  sought  in  those 
dim  beings,  "  half-man,  half-fish,"  whom  he  brings 
back  from  some  voyage,  those  forlorn  Esquimaux 
who,  seen  in  London  streets,  and  long  remembered, 
suggested  to  the  dreaming  soul  of  Shakespeare  Cali- 
ban and  his  island.  Frobisher's  watchword  on  the 
high  seas  is  memorable.  In  the  northern  latitudes, 
under  the  spectral  stars,  the  sentinel  of  the  Michael 
gives  the  challenge  "  For  God  the  Lord,"  and  senti- 
nel replies,  "  And  Christ  His  Sonne." 

The  repulse  of  Spain  is  but  the  culminating 
achievement  of  this  energy  of  the  soul  which  great- 
ens  the  life  of  England  already  in  pre- Armada  times. 


48  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

And  simultaneously  with  the  conflict  against  Spain 
this  same  energy  attests  its  presence  in  a  form  as- 
suredly not  less  divine  within  the  souls  of  those  who 
rear  that  unseen  empire,  whose  foundations  are  laid 
eternally  in  the  thoughts  of  men,  the  empire  reared 
by  Shakespeare,  Webster,  Beaumont,  and  Milton. 

In  the  seventeenth  century  it  inspires  the  states- 
men of  England  not  only  with  the  ardour  for  con- 
stitutional freedom,  but  engages  them  in  ceaseless 
and  not  unavailing  efforts  towards  a  deeper  concep- 
tion of  justice  and  of  liberty,  foreshadowing  uncon- 
sciously the  ideals  of  later  times.  If  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  did  nothing  else  for  England  it  im- 
planted in  her  great  statesmen  a  profound  distrust 
of  the  imperial  systems  of  the  Bourbons  and  the 
Hapsburgs.  Eliot,  for  instance,  in  the  work  entitled 
The  Monarchy  of  Man,  lofty  in  its  form  as  in  its 
thought,  written  in  his  prison,  though  studying 
Plato  and  the  older  ideals  of  empire,  is  yet  obscurely 
searching  after  a  new  ideal.  We  encounter  a  simi- 
lar effort  in  the  great  Montrose,  capable  of  that 
Scottish  campaign,  and  of  writing  one  of  the  finest 
love-songs  in  the  language,  capable  also  of  some 
very  vivid  thoughts  on  statesmanship.  In  natures 
like  Eliot  and  Montrose,  the  height  of  the  ideal  de- 
termines the  steadfastness  of  the  action.  And  that 
ideal,  I  repeat,  is  distinct  from  Plato's,  distinct  from 
Dante's,  and  from  that  of  the  Bourbon  and  Haps- 
burg  empires,  in  which  Dante's  conception  is  but 
rudely  or  imperfectly  developed.  The  ideal  of 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  49 

these  English  statesmen  is  framed  upon  another 
conception  of  justice,  another  conception  of  free- 
dom, equally  sublime,  and  more  catholic  and  hu- 
mane. Whatever  its  immediate  influence  upon  cer- 
tain of  their  contemporaries,  over  their  own  hearts 
it  was  all-powerful.  The  very  vividness  with  which 
they  conceive  the  ideal,  and  the  noble  constancy  with 
which  they  pursue  it,  link  the  high  purposes  of  these 
two  men  to  the  purposes  of  Milton,  of  Cromwell, 
of  Selden,  and  of  Falkland.  The  perfect  State,  the 
scope  of  its  laws,  government,  religion,  to  each  is 
manifest,  though  the  path  that  leads  thither  may 
seem  now  through  Monarchy,  now  through  a  Re- 
public, or  at  other  times  indistinct,  or  lost  altogether 
in  the  bewildering  maze  of  adverse  interests.  From 
the  remote  nature  of  their  quest  arises  much  of 
the  apparent  inconsistency  in  the  political  life  of 
that  era.  The  parting  of  Pym  and  Straff ord  ac- 
quires an  added,  a  tragic  poignancy  from  the  con- 
sciousness in  the  heart  of  each  that  the  star  which 
leads  him  on  is  the  star  of  England's  destiny. 

Hence,  too,  the  suspicion  attached  to  men  like 
Selden  and  Falkland  of  being  mere  theoricians  in 
advance  of  their  time, —  an  accusation  fatal  to 
statesmanship.  But  the  advent  of  that  age  was 
marked  by  so  much  that  was  novel  in  religion,13 

13  Burnet  is  incredibly  vain,  unredeemed  by  Boswell's  hero- 
worship  ;  yet  his  book  reflects  the  medley,  the  fervour,  the 
vehemence,  crimes,  hopes  of  this  time.  In  one  sentence  nine- 
teen religions  are  named  as  co-existing  in  Scotland. 


50  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

in  State,  in  foreign  and  domestic  policy,  the  new 
direction  of  imperial  enterprise,  the  unity  of  two 
nations,  ancient  and  apparently  irreconcilable  foes, 
the  jarring  creeds,  convulsing  the  life  of  both  these 
nations,  for  both  were  deeply  religious,  that  it  were 
rash  to  accuse  of  rashness  any  actor  in  those  times. 
But  it  is  the  adventurous  daring  of  their  spirits,  the 
swift  glance  searching  the  horizons  of  the  future,  it 
is  that  very  energy  of  the  soul  of  which  I  have 
spoken  which  render  these  statesmen  obnoxious  to 
the  suspicion  of  theory.     The  temper  of  Selden,  in- 
deed, in  harmony  with  the  thoughtful  and  melan- 
choly cast  of  his  features,  disposed  him  to  subtlety 
and  niceness  of  argument,  and  with  a  division  pend- 
ing,  often  deprived  his  words  of   a   force   which 
homelier  orators  could  command.    And  yet  his  ca- 
reer is  a  presage  of  the  future.     Toleration  in  re- 
ligion, freedom  of  the  press,  the  supremacy  of  the 
seas,  the  habeas  corpus,  are  all  lines  along  which 
his  thought  moves,  not  so  much  distancing  as  lead- 
ing the  practical  statesmen  of  his  generation.     And 
there  is  a  curious  fitness  in  the  dedication  to  him  in 
1649  of  Edward  Pococke's  Arabic  studies,  which 
nearly  a  century  and  a  half  later  were  to  form  the 
basis  of  Gibbon's  great  chapters.     But  the  year  of 
Mare  Clausum  is  at  once  the  greatest  in  Selden's 
life,  and  the  last  months  of  greatness  in  the  life  of 
his  royal  master.14 

14  The  Mare  Clausum  was  framed  as  an  answer  to  Grotius' 
Mare  Liberum,  which  had  been  printed,  perhaps  without  Gro- 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  51 

But  theory  is  a  charge  which  has  ever  been  urged 
against  revolutionists.  Revolution  is  the  child  of 
speculation.  The  men  of  the  seventeenth  century 

tins'  consent,  in  1610.  Selden's  tract,  printed  in  November, 
1635,  is  a  folio  of  304  pages,  in  which,  setting  forth  precedent 
on  precedent,  he  claims  for  England,  as  by  law  and  ancient 
custom  established,  that  same  supremacy  over  the  high  seas  as 
the  Portuguese  had  exercised  over  the  eastern  waters,  and 
Venice  over  the  Adriatic.  The  King's  enthusiasm  was  kindled. 
The  work  was  issued  with  all  the  circumstance  of  a  State 
paper,  and  it  came  upon  foreign  courts  like  a  declaration  of 
policy,  the  resolve  at  length  to  enforce  the  time-honoured  and 
indefeasible  rights  of  England.  Copies  were  with  due  cere- 
mony deposited  in  the  Exchequer  and  at  the  Admiralty.  A 
fleet  was  equipped,  and  as  an  atonement  for  the  wrongs  done 
to  the  elder  Northumberland,  the  King  gave  the  command  to 
his  son,  whose  portrait  as  Admiral  forms  one  of  the  noblest 
of  Vandyck's  canvases.  But  Northumberland,  though  brave 
to  a  fault,  was  no  seaman,  and  the  whole  enterprise  threat- 
ened to  end  in  ridicule.  Stung  to  the  quick,  Charles  again 
turned  to  the  nation.  But  in  the  nine  intervening  years  since 
1628  the  nation's  heart  had  left  him.  To  his  demand  for  sup- 
plies to  strengthen  the  fleet  came  Hampden's  refusal.  The 
trial  was  the  prelude  to  the  Grand  Remonstrance,  to  Naseby, 
and  to  Whitehall,  where,  as  if  swept  thither  by  the  crowded 
events  of  some  fantastic  dream,  he  awoke  from  his  visions  of 
England's  greatness  and  the  empire  of  the  seas,  alone  on  a 
scaffold,  surrounded  by  a  ring  of  English  eyes,  looking  hate, 
sullen  indifference,  or  cold  resolution. 

Leave  him  still  loftier  than  the  world  suspects, 
Living  or  dying. 

After  all  he  was  a  king,  and  in  his  veins  the  blood  of  Mary 
Stuart  still  beat.  An  English  version  of  Selden's  treatise  ap- 
peared in  the  time  of  Cromwell.  The  translator  was  March- 
amont  Nedham.  The  dedication  to  the  Supreme  Authority  of 
the  Nation,  the  Parliament  of  the  Commonwealth  of  England, 
is  dated  November  iQth,  1652. 


52  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

are  discoverers  in  politics.  Their  mark  is  a  wider 
empire  than  that  of  Vasco  da  Gama  and  his  king,  a 
realm  more  wondrous  than  that  of  Aee'tes.  But 
Da  Gama  did  not  steer  forthright  to  the  Indies,  nor 
Jason  to  the  Colchian  strand,  though  each  knew 
clearly  the  goal  he  sought,  just  as  Wentworth  and 
Selden,  Falkland  and  Montrose,  Eliot  and  Milton, 
knew  the  State  they  were  steering  for,  though  each 
may  have  wavered  in  his  own  mind  as  to  the  course, 
and  at  last  parted  fatally  from  his  companions. 
Practical  does  not  always  mean  commonplace,  and 
in  the  light  of  their  deeds  it  seems  superfluous  to 
discuss  whether  the  writer  of  Defensio  pro  Populo 
Anglicano,  the  destroyer  of  the  Campbells,  or  the 
accuser  of  Buckingham,  were  practical  politicians. 
In  their  lives,  in  the  shaping  of  their  careers,  the 
visionary  is  actualized,  the  ideal  real,  in  that  fidelity 
of  soul  which  leaves  one  dead  on  the  battlefield, 
another  on  the  gibbet,  thirty  feet  high,  "  honoured 
thus  in  death,"  as  he  remarked  pleasantly,  a  third 
to  the  dreary  martyrdom  of  the  Tower,  a  fourth  to 
that  dread  visitation,  endured  with  stoic  grandeur, 
and  yet  at  times  forcing  from  his  lips  the  cry  of 
anguish  which  thrills  the  verse  of  Samson  Ago- 
nistes  — 

O  dark,  dark,  dark,  amid  the  blaze  of  noon, 
Irrecoverably  dark,  total  eclipse, 
Without  all  hope  of  day. 

But  not  in  vain.     The  tireless  centuries  have  accom- 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  53 

plished  the  task  these  men  initiated,  have  travelled 
the  path  they  set  forth  in,  have  completed  the  jour- 
ney which  they  began. 

We  find  the  same  pre-occupation,  with  some 
wider  conception  of  justice,  empire,  and  freedom  in 
the  younger  Barclay,  the  author  of  Argenis,  written 
in  Latin  but  read  in  many  languages,  studied  by 
Richelieu  and  moulding  his  later,  wiser  policy  to- 
wards the  Huguenots,  read,  above  all,  by  Fenelon, 
who  rises  from  it  to  write  Telemaque.  It  meets  us 
in  the  last  work  of  Algernon  Sidney,  which,  like 
Eliot's  treatise,  bears  about  it  the  air  of  a  martyr's 
cell.  We  find  it  a'gain  explicitly  in  the  Oceana  of 
Harrington,  in  the  fragmentary  writings  of  Shaftes- 
bury,  and  in  actual  politics  it  finds  triumphant  ex- 
pression at  last  in  the  eloquence  that  was  like  a  battle- 
cry,  in  the  energy  that  at  moments  seems  superhu- 
man, the  wisdom,  the  penetrating  foresight,  of  the 
mightiest  o-f  all  EnglancPs  statesmen-orators,  the 
elder  Pitt.  It  burns  in  clear  flame  in  the  men  who 
come  after  him,  in  his  own  son,  only  less  great  than 
his  great  sire;  in  Charles  James  Fox  and  in  Wind- 
ham,  who  in  the  great  debate  15  of  1801  fought 

15  The  preliminaries  to  the  Peace  of  Amiens  were  signed  on 
October  ist,  1801.  Parliament  opened  on  October  2pth,  and 
after  the  King's  speech,  Windham  compared  his  position 
amid  the  general  rejoicings  of  the  House  at  the  prospect  of 
an  end  to  the  war,  to  Hamlet's  at  the  wedding- feast  of  Clau- 
dius. In  the  debate  of  November  3rd,  Pitt  declared  himself 
resigned  to  the  loss  of  the  Cape  by  the  retention  of  Ceylon, 
while  the  opinion  of  Fox  was,  that  by  this  surrender  we  should 


54  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

obstinately  to  save  the  Cape  when  Nelson  and  St. 
Vincent  would  have  flung  it  away;  in  Canning, 
Wilberforce,  in  Romilly ;  in  poets  like  Shelley,  and 
thinkers  like  John  Stuart  Mill. 

The  revolution  in  parliamentary  representation 
during  the  present  century,  a  revolution  which,  ex- 
tending over  more  than  fifty  years,  from  1831  to 
1884,  may  even  be  compared  in  its  momentous  con- 
sequences with  the  revolution  of  1640-88,  though 
constitutional  in  design,  yet  forms  an  integral  part 
of  the  wider  movement  whose  course  across  the 
centuries  we  have  indicated.  The  leaders  in  this 
revolution,  men  like  Russell  and  Grey,  complete  the 
work  which  Eliot,  Wentworth,  and  Pym  began. 
They  ask  the  question,  else  unasked,  they  answer  the 
question,  else  unanswered  —  How  shall  a  people, 
not  itself  free,  a  people  disqualified  and  disfran- 

have  the  benefit  of  the  colony  without  its  expenses.  Nelson, 
with  the  glory  of  his  victory  at  Copenhagen  just  six  months 
old,  maintained  that  in  the  days  when  Indiamen  were  heavy 
ships  the  Cape  had  its  uses,  but  now  that  they  were  coppered, 
and  sailed  well,  the  Cape  was  a  mere  tavern  that  served  to 
delay  the  voyage.  The  opening  of  Windham's  speech  on  the 
4th,  "  We  are  a  conquered  nation,  England  gives  all,  France 
nothing,"  defines  his  position  (Par/.  Hist,  xxxvi,  pp.  1-191). 
Windham  was  one  of  the  few  statesmen  who,  even  before  the 
consulate  had  passed  into  the  Empire,  understood  the  gravity 
of  our  relations  to  France.  Every  month  added  proof  of  the 
accuracy  of  his  presentiments,  but  once  understood  by  England 
there  was  no  faltering.  Prussia,  Austria,  the  Czar,  all 
acknowledged  the  new  Empire,  and  made  peace  or  alliance 
with  its  despot,  but  from  the  rupture  of  the  Peace  of  Amiens 
England  waged  a  war  without  truce  till  Elba  and  Ste.  Helene. 


THE  LAW  OF  TRAGEDY  55 

chised,  become  the  harbinger  of  a  new  era  to  other 
peoples,  or  the  herald  of  the  higher  freedom  to  the 
ancient  races  of  India  —  Aryans,  of  like  blood  with 
our  own,  moving  forever  as  in  a  twilight  air,  woven 
of  the  pride,  the  pathos,  aril  the  sombre  yet  unde- 
caying  memories  of  their  fabulous  past  —  to  the 
Moslem  populations  whose  "  Book  "  proclaimed  the 
political  equality  of  men  twelve  centuries  before 
Mirabeau  spoke  or  the  Bastille  fell? 

This,  then,  is  the  testimony  of  the  Past,  and  the 
witness  of  the  Dead  is  this.  Thus  it  has  arisen, 
this  ideal,  the  ideal  of  Britain  as  distinct  from  the 
ideal  of  Rome,  of  Islam,  or  of  Persia  —  thus  it  has 
arisen,  this  Empire,  unexampled  in  present  and 
without  a  precedent  in  former  times;  for  Athens 
under  Pericles  was  but  a  masked  despotism,  and  the 
republic-empire  of  Islam  passed  swifter  than  a 
dream.  Thus  it  has  arisen,  this  Imperial  Britain, 
from  the  dark  Unconscious  emerging  to  the  Con- 
scious, not  like  an  empire  of  mist  uprising  under  the 
wands  of  magic-working  architects,  but  based  on 
heroisms,  endurances,  lofty  ideals  frustrate  yet  im- 
perishable, patient  thought  slowly  elaborating  itself 
through  the  ages  —  the  s'ea-wolves'  battle  fury,  the 
splendour  of  chivalry,  the  crusader's  dazzling  hope, 
the  immortal  ardour  of  Norman  and  Plantagenet 
kings,  baffled,  foiled,  but  still  in  other  forms  re- 
turning to  uplift  the  spirit  of  succeeding  times,  the 
unconquered  hearts  of  Tudor  mariners  rejoicing  in 
the  battle  onset  and  the  storm,  the  strung  thought, 


56  THE  POLITICAL  IDEAL 

the  intense  vision  of  statesmen  of  the  later  cen- 
turies, Eliot,  Chatham,  Canning,  and  at  the  last, 
deep-toned,  far  echoing  as  the  murmur  of  forests 
and  cataracts,  the  sanctioning  voices  of  enfran- 
chised millions  accepting  their  destiny,  resolute! 
This  is  the  achievement  of  the  ages,  this  the  great- 
est birth  of  Time.  For  in  the  empires  of  the  past 
there  is  not  an  ideal,  not  a  structural  design  which 
these  warriors,  monarchs,  statesmen  have  not,  de- 
liberately or  unconsciously,  rejected,  or,  as  in  an 
alembic,  transmuted  to  finer  purposes  and  to  nobler 
ends. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   DEVELOPMENT    OF    THE    RELIGIOUS    IDEAL 

IN  the  history  of  the  religion  of  an  imperial  race,  it 
is  not  only  the  development  of  the  ideal  within  the 
consciousness  of  the  race  itself  that  we  have  to  con- 
sider, but  the  advance  or  decline  in  its  conceptions 
of  the  religions  of  the  peoples  within  the  zone  of  its 
influence  or  dominion.  For  such  a  study  the  ma- 
terials are  only  in  appearance  less  satisfactory  than 
for  the  study  of  the  political  ideal  of  a  race.  It  is 
penetratingly  observed  by  La  Rochefoucauld  that 
the  history  of  the  Fronde  can  never  be  accurately 
written,  because  the  persons  in  that  drama  were 
actuated  by  motives  so  base  that  even  in  the  height 
of  performance  each  actor  of  the  deeds  was  striving 
to  make  a  record  of  them  impossible.  The  reflec- 
tion might  be  extended  to  other  political  revolu- 
tions, and  to  other  incidents  than  the  Fronde. 
Ranke's  indefatigable  zeal,  his  anxiety  "  in  history 
always  to  see  the  thing  as  in  very  deed  it  enacted 
itself,"  never  carried  him  nearer  his  object  than  the 
impression  of  an  impression.  No  State  papers,  no 
documents,  the  most  authentic,  can  take  us  further. 
But  in  this  very  strife,  this  zeal  for  the  True,  for- 
57 


58  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

ever  baffled  yet  forever  renewed,  one  of  the  noblest 
attributes  of  the  present  age  discovers  itself.  Indis- 
putable facts  are  often  the  sepulchres  of  thought, 
and  truth  after  all,  not  certainty,  is  the  historian's 
goal.  It  might  even  be  urged  that  the  records  of 
religion,  the  martyr's  resolution,  the  saint's  fervour, 
the  reformer's  aspiration,  the  prophet's  faith,  offer 
a  surer  hope  of  attaining  this  goal  than  the  records 
of  politics. 

§  I.       RELIGION    AND   IMI'ERIALISM 

Religion  forms  an  integral  part  of  a  nation's  life, 
and  in  the  development  of  the  ideal  of  Imperial 
Britain  on  its  religious  side,  the  same  transforming 
forces,  the  same  energy  of  the  soul,  the  operation  of 
the  same  law  analogous  to  the  law  of  tragedy  al- 
ready described,  which  manifest  themselves  in  poli- 
tics, are  here  apparent.  The  persecuting  intolerant 
England  of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries, 
after  passing  through  the  Puritan  struggle  of  the 
seventeenth,  the  scepticism  or  indifference  of  later 
times,  appears  at  last  in  the  closing  years  of  the 
nineteenth  century  as  the  supreme  representative, 
if  not  the  creator,  of  an  ideal  hardly  less  humane 
than  that  of  the  Humanists  themselves  —  who  rec- 
ognised in  every  cry  of  the  heart  a  prayer,  silent  or 
spoken,  to  the  God  of  all  the  earth,  of  all  peoples, 
and  of  all  times.  The  Rome  of  the  Antonines  had 
even  in  this  sphere  no  loftier  ideal,  no  fairer  vision, 
than  that  which  now  seems  to  float  before  Imperial 


RELIGION  AND  IMPERIALISM        59 

Britain,  no  wider  sympathy,  not  merely  with  the 
sects  of  its  own  faith,  but  with  the  religions  of  other 
races  within  its  dominions,  once  hostile  to  its  own. 
By  slow  degrees  England  has  arisen,  first  ta  the 
perception  of  the  truth  in  other  sects,  and  then  to  a 
perception  of  the  truth  in  other  faiths.  In  lesser 
creeds,  and  amongst  decaying  races,  tolerance  is 
sometimes  the  equivalent  of  irreligion,  but  the  effort 
to  recognize  so  far  as  possible  the  principle,  im- 
plicit in  Montesquieu,  that  a  man  is  born  of  this  re- 
ligion or  of  that,  has,  in  all  ages,  been  the  stamp  of 
imperial  races.  Upon  the"  character  of  the  race 
and  the  character  of  its  religion,  depend  the  answer 
to  the  question  whether  by  empire  the  religion  of  the 
imperial  race  shall  be  exalted  or  debased. 

As  in  politics  so  in  religion  it  is  to  the  fifteenth 
century  —  the  tragic  insight  born  of  defeat,  disas- 
ter, and  soul-anguish  —  that  we  must  turn  for  the 
causes,  for  the  origins  of  that  transformation  in  the 
life  of  the  nation  which  has  resulted  in  the  conscious 
ideal  of  the  Britain  of  to-day.  The  "  separation  " 
from  Rome  fifty  years  after  Bos  worth  had  no  con- 
scious imperial  purpose,  but  it  rescued  the  rising 
empire  of  England  from-  the  taint  of  mediaevalism 
which  sapped  the  empires  of  Spain,  of  the  Bourbons, 
and  of  the  Hapsburgs.  The  Reformation  in  Eng- 
land owes  much  of  its  character  amongst  the  people 
at  large,  apart  from  the  government,  above  all  in 
the  heroic  age  of  the  Reformation  in  England  — 
the  Puritan  wars  —  to  that  earlier  convulsion  in  the 


6o  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

nation's  consciousness,  to  the  period  of  anguish  and 
defeat  of  which  we  have  spoken  at  some  length  al- 
ready. But  for  the  remoter  origins  and  causes  of 
the  whole  movement  styled  "  the  English  Reforma- 
tion "  we  must  search  not  in  any  one  period  or  oc- 
currence, but  in  the  character  of  the  race  itself. 
The  English  Reformation  does  not  begin  with 
Henry  VIII  any  more  than  the  Scottish  Reforma- 
tion begins  with  John  Knox:  it  springs  from  the 
heart  of  the  race,  from  the  intensity,  the  tragic 
earnestness  with  which  in  all  periods  England  has 
conceived  the  supreme  questions  of  man's  destiny, 
man's  relation  to  the  Divine,  the  "Whence?"  and 
the  "  Whither?  "  of  human  life.  And  it  is  the  seri- 
ousness with  which  England  regards  its  own  re- 
ligion, and  the  imaginative  sympathy  which  gives 
it  the  power  of  recognising  the  sincerity  of  other 
religions  beneath  its  sway,  which  distinguish  Im- 
perial Britain  from  the  empires  of  the  past. 

§  2.      THE  PLACE  OF  RELIGION  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY 

In  the  Roman  Empire,  for  instance,  the  tolerance 
of  the  Republic  passes  swiftly  into  the  disregard  of 
the  Caesars  of  the  Julian  line,  into  the  capricious  or 
ineffectual  persecution  of  later  dynasties.  Rome 
never  endeavours  in  this  sphere  to  lead  its  subject 
peoples  to  any  higher  vision.  When  that  effort  is 
made,  Rome  itself  is  dying.  Alaric  and  the  fifth 
century  have  come.  For  Rome  the  drama  of  a 
thousand  years  is  ended :  Rome  is  moribund  and  has 


RELIGION  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY     61 

but  strength  to  die  greatly,  tragically.  Would  you 
see  the  end  of  Rome  as  in  a  figure  darkly  ?  Over  a 
dead  Roman  a  Goth  bends,  and  by  the  flare  of  a 
torch  seeks  to  read  on  the  still  brow  the  secret  of 
his  own  destiny. 

In  the  Empire  of  Persia  and  the  great  days  of  the 
Sassanides,  in  Kurush,  who  destroys  the  Median 
Empire,  and  spreads  wider  the  religion  of  the  van- 
quished, the  religion  of  Zerdusht,  the  symbolic  wor- 
ship of  flame,  loveliest  of  inanimate  things  —  even 
there  no  sustained,  no  deliberate  effort  towards  an 
ideal  amongst  the  peoples  beneath  the  Persian  sway 
can  be  discovered.  Islam  starts  with  religious  as- 
pirations, the  most  lofty,  the  most  beneficent,  but 
the  purity  of  her  ideals  dies  with  Ali.  At  Damas- 
cus and  at  Bagdad  an  autocratic  system  warped  by 
contact  with  Rome  infects  the  religious;  the  result  is 
a  theocracy  in  which  the  purposes  of  Mohammed, 
at  least  on  their  political  side,  are  abandoned,  lost  at 
last  in  the  gloomy  and  often  ferocious  despotism  of 
the  Ottoman  Turks. 

Consider  in  contrast  with  these  empires  the  ques- 
tion—  What  is  the  distinction  in  this  phase  of  hu- 
man life  of  the  Empire  of  Britain,  of  its  history? 
Steadily  growing  from  its  first  beginnings  —  shall  I 
say,  from  that  great  battle  of  the  Winwsed,  where 
three  Kings  are  in  conflict  and  the  slayer  of  two  lies 
dead  —  steadily  growing,  on  to  the  present  hour,  as 
in  politics  so  in  religion,  the  effort  sometimes  con- 
scious, sometimes  unconscious,  but  persistent,  con- 


62  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

tinuous,  towards  an  ever  purer,  higher,  nobler  con- 
ception of  man's  relations  to  the  Divine.  From 
this  effort  arises  the  Reformation,  from  this  effort 
arises  in  the  way  of  a  thousand  years  the  Empire 
based  on  the  higher  justice,  the  imaginative  justice, 
the  higher  freedom,  the  imaginative  freedom. 

Thus  even  in  the  earliest  periods  of  our  history, 
during  the  struggle  between  Christianism  and  the 
religion  of  Thor  and  Woden,  England  shows  far 
more  violence,  more  earnestness,  more  fury  on  both 
sides,  than  is  found  anywhere  else  in  Europe. 
Glance,  for  instance,  at  this  struggle  in  Germany. 
Witikind  16  the  Saxon  arises  as  the  champion  of  the 
old  gods  against  Christianity.  Charlemagne  with 
his  Frankish  cavalry  comes  down  amongst  the  Sax- 
ons. His  march  surpasses  the  march  of  Csesar,  or 
of  Constantine  against  Rome.  Witikind  does  rise 
to  the  heights  of  heroism  against  Charlemagne  twice ; 
but  in  the  end  he  surrenders,  gives  in,  and  dies  a 
hanger-on  at  the  court  of  his  conqueror.  Mercia, 
the  kingdom  of  the  mid-English,  that  too  produces 
its  champion  of  the  old  gods  against  the  religion  of 
Christ  —  Penda.  There  is  no  surrender  here ;  two 

16  I  have  retained  the  familiar  spelling  of  the  Saxon  hero's 
name.  Giesebrecht,  who  discovers  in  the  stand  against  Char- 
lemagne something  of  the  spirit  of  Arminius,  etwas  vom 
Geiste  Armins  (D.K.L,  p.  112),  uses  the  form  "  Widukind," 
and  the  same  form  has  the  sanction  of  Waitz  (Verfassungs- 
geschichte,  iii,  p.  120).  Yet  the  form  Widu-kind  is  probably 
no  more  than  a  chronicler's  theory  of  the  derivation  of  the 
name. 


RELIGION  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY     63 

kings,  I  repeat,  he  slays,  and  grown  old  in  war,  he 
rouses  himself  like  a  hoary  old  lion  of  the  forest 
to  fight  his  last  battle.  An  intransigeant,  an  irre- 
concilable, this  King  Penda,  fighting  his  last  battle 
against  this  new  and  hated  thing,  this  Christianism ! 
He  lies  dead  there  —  he  becomes  no  hanger-on. 
There  you  have  the  spirit  of  the  race.  It  displays 
itself  in  a  form  not  less  impressive  in  the  well- 
known  incident  in  the  very  era  of  Penda,  described 
by  Bede. 

King  Eadwine  sits  in  council  to  discuss  the  mes- 
sage of  Christ,  the  mansions  that  await  the  soul  of 
man,  the  promise  of  a  life  beyond  death ;  and  Coifi, 
one  of  the  councillors,  rising,  speaks  thus :  "  So 
seemeth  to  me  the  life  of  man,  O  King,  as  when  in 
winter-tide,  seated  with  your  thanes  around  you, 
out  of  the  storm  that  rages  without  a  sparrow  flies 
into  the  hall,  and  fluttering  hither  and  thither  a  lit- 
tle, in  the  warmth  and  light,  passes  out  again  into 
the  storm  and  darkness.  Such  is  man's  life,  but 
whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth  we  know 
not."  "  We  ne  kunnen,"  as  Alfred  the  Great,  its 
first  translator,  ends  the  passage.  Who  does  not 
see  —  notwithstanding  the  difference  of  time,  place, 
character,  and  all  stage  circumstance  —  who  does 
not  see  rise  before  him  the  judgment-hall  of  Soc- 
rates, hear  the  solemn  last  words  to  his  judges: 
"  I  go  to  death,  and  you  to  life,  but  which  of  us 
goeth  to  the  better  is  known  to  God  alone 

iravrl  TrAJ/v  rj  ra>  06<x»  "  ? 


64  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

Such  is  the  stern  and  high  manner  in  which  this 
conflict  in  England  between  the  religions  of  Woden 
and  Christ  is  conducted.  There  in  the  seventh  cen- 
tury is  the  depth  of  heart,  the  energy  of  soul,  the 
pity  and  the  insight  which  appear  in  other  forms  in 
after  ages.  The  roll  of  English  names  in  the  Acta 
Sanctorum  is  the  living  witness  of  the  sincerity,  the 
intensity  with  which  the  same  men  who  fought  to 
the  death  for  Woden  at  the  Winwaed,  or  speculated 
with  Coifi  on  the  eternal  mystery,  accepted  the  faith 
which  Rome  taught,  the  ideal  from  Galilee  trans- 
muted by  Roman  imagination,  Roman  statesman- 
ship. The  Saintly  Ideal  lay  on  them  like  a  spell : 
earth  existed  but  to  die  in,  life  was  given  but  to  pray 
for  death.  Rome  taught  the  Saxon  and  the  Jute 
that  all  they  had  hitherto  prayed  for,  glory  in  battle, 
earthly  power  and  splendour,  must  be  renounced, 
and  become  but  as  the  sourd  of  bells  from  a  city 
buried  deep  beneath  the  ocean.  Instead  of  defiance, 
Rome  taught  them  reverence ;  instead  of  pride,  self- 
abasement;  instead  of  the  worship  of  delight,  the 
worship  of  sorrow.  In  this  faith  the  Saxon  and 
the  Jute  strove  with  tragic  seriousness  to  live.  But 
the  old  faith  died  hard,  or  lived  on  side  by  side  with 
the  new,  far  into  the  Middle  Age.  Literature  re- 
flects the  inner  struggles  of  the  period:  the  war- 
song  of  Brunanburh,  the  mystic  light  which  hangs 
upon  the  verses  of  Csedmon,  the  melancholy  of 
Cynewulf's  lyrics.  Yet  what  a  contrast  is  the  Eng- 
land delineated  by  Bede  with  Visigothic  Spain,  with 


RELIGION  IN  ENGLISH  HISTORY     65 

Lombard  Italy,  or  Prankish  Gaul,  as  delineated  by 
Gregory  of  Tours! 

Thus  these  Angles,  Jutes,  and  Saxons,  slowly  dis- 
ciplining themselves  to  the  new  ideal  —  to  them  in 
the  ninth  century  come  the  Vikings.  They  are  not 
less  conspicuous  in  valour,  nor  less  profoundly  sensi- 
tive to  the  wonder  and  mystery  of  life,  the  poets  in 
other  lands  of  the  Eddas  and  of  the  Northern  Myths. 
England  as  we  know  it  is  not  yet  formed.  Amongst 
the  formative  influences  of  English  religion  and 
English  freedom,  and  ultimately  of  this  ideal  of 
modern  times,  must  be  reckoned  the  Viking  and  the 
Norseman,  the  followers  of  Guthrum,  of  Ivar,  of 
Hrolf,  not  less  than  the  followers  of  Cerdic  and  of 
Cynric.  To  the  religious  consciousness  of  the  Jutes, 
Angles  and  Saxons,  the  Vikings  bring  a  religious 
consciousness  as  deep  and  serious.  The  struggle 
against  the  Danes  and  Normans  is  not  a  struggle  of 
English  against  foreigners ;  it  is  a  conflict  for  politi- 
cal supremacy  amongst  men  of  the  same  race,  who 
ultimately  grow  together  into  the  England  of  the 
fourteenth  century.  In  the  light  of  the  future,  the 
struggle  of  the  ninth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  centuries 
does  but  continue  the  conflicts  of  the  Heptarchic 
kings.  To  this  land  of  England  the  Vikings  have 
the  right  which  the  followers  of  Cerdic  and  Cynric 
had  —  the  right  of  supremacy,  the  right  which  the 
will  to  possess  it  and  the  resolution  to  die  for  that 
will,  confers. 


66  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

§  3.      DISTINCTION    OF    THE    RELIGION    OF    THE 
VIKINGS 

The  religion  of  the  Vikings  was  the  converse  of 
their  courage.  Aristotle  remarks  profoundly  that 
the  race  which  cannot  quit  itself  like  a  man  in  war 
cannot  do  any  great  thing  in  philosophy.  Religion 
is  the  philosophy  of  the  warrior.  And  the  scanty 
records  of  the  Vikings,  the  character  of  Knut,  for 
instance,  or  that  of  the  Conqueror,  attest  the  prin- 
ciple that  the  thoughts  of  the  valiant  about  God 
penetrate  more  deeply  than  the  thoughts  of  the  das- 
tard. The  Normans,  who  close  the  English  Welt- 
wanderung,  who  close  the  merely  formative  period 
of  England,  illustrate  this  conspicuously.  If  the 
sombre  fury  of  the  Winwsed  displays  the  stern 
depths  of  religious  conviction  in  the  vanguard  of 
our  race,  if  the  Eddas  and  Myths  argue  a  religious 
earnestness  not  less  deep  in  the  Vikings,  the  high 
seriousness  of  the  religious  emotion  of  the  Norse- 
man is  not  less  clearly  attested.  Europe  of  the 
eleventh  century  holds  three  men,  each  of  heroic 
proportions,  each  a  Teuton  in  blood  —  Hildebrand, 
Robert  Guiscard,  and  William  the  Conqueror.  In 
intellectual  vision,  in  spiritual  insight,  Hildebrand 
has  few  parallels  in  history.  He  is  the  founder  of 
the  Mediaeval  Papacy,  realising  in  its  orders  of 
monks,  priests,  and  crusaders  a  State  not  without 
singular  resemblances  to  that  which  Plato  pondered. 
Like  Napoleon  and  like  Buonarroti,  Hildebrand  had 


RELIGION  OF  THE  VIKINGS          67 

the  power,  during  the  execution  of  one  gigantic  de- 
sign, of  producing  others  of  not  less  astonishing 
vastness,  to  reinforce  or  supplant  the  first  should  it 
fail.  One  of  his  designs  originated  in  the  impres- 
sion which  Norman  genius  made  upon  him.  It  was 
to  transform  this  race,  the  tyrants  of  the  Baltic  and 
the  English  seas,  the  dominators  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean and  the  Aegean,  into  omnipresent  emissaries 
and  soldiers  of  the  theocratic  State  whose  centre  was 
Rome.  But  the  vastness  of  his  original  design 
broke  even  the  mighty  will  of  Hildebrand ;  his  pur- 
pose with  regard  to  the  Norseman  remains  like 
some  abandoned  sketch  by  Buonarroti  or  Tintoretto. 
Yet  no  ruler  of  men  had  a  pro  founder  knowledge  of 
character,  and  with  the  Viking  nature  circumstance 
had  rendered  him  peculiarly  familiar.  The  judg- 
ment of  Orderic  and  of  William  of  Malmesbury 
confirms  the  impression  of  Hildebrand.  But  the 
Normans  have  been  their  own  witnesses,  the  cathe- 
drals which  they  raised  from  the  Seine  to  the  Tyne 
are  epics  in  stone,  inspired  by  no  earthly  muse,  fit 
emblems  of  the  rock-like  endurance  and  soaring 
valour  of  our  race. 

There  is  a  way  of  writing  the  history  of  Senlac 
which  Voltaire,  Thierry,  Michelet,  and  Guizot  dote 
upon,  infecting  certain  English  historians  with  their 
complacency,  as  if  the  Norse  Vikings  were  the  de- 
scendants of  Chlodovech,  and  the  conquest  of  Eng- 
land were  the  glory  of  France.  The  absurdity  was 
crowned  in  1804,  when  Napoleon  turned  the  atten- 


68  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

tion  of  his  subjects  to  the  history  of  1066,  as  an 
auspicious  study  for  the  partners  of  his  great  enter- 
prise against  the  England  of  Pitt!  How  many 
Franks,  one  asks,  followed  the  red  banner  of  the 
Bastard  to  Senlac,  or,  leaning  on  their  shields, 
watched  the  coronation  at  Westminster?  Nor  was 
it  in  the  valley  of  the  Seine  that  the  Norsemen  ac- 
quired their  genius  for  religion,  for  government,  for 
art.  To  the  followers  of  Hrolf  the  empire  of 
Charlemagne  had  the  halo  which  the  Empire  of 
Rome  had  to  the  followers  of  Alaric,  and  in  that 
spirit  they  adopted  its  language  and  turned  its  laws 
to  their  own  purposes.  But  Jutes  and  Angles  and 
Saxons,  Ostmen  and  Danes,  were,  if  less  assiduous, 
not  less  earnest  pupils  in  the  same  school  as  the 
Norsemen:  to  all  alike,  the  remnant  of  the  Frank- 
ish  realm  of  Charles  lay  nearest,  representing  Rome 
and  the  glory  of  the  Caesars.  Nature  and  her  affin- 
ities drew  the  Normans  to  the  West,  across  the  salt 
plains  whither  for  six  hundred  years  the  most  ad- 
venturous of  their  own  blood  had  preceded  them. 
They  closed  the  movement  towards  the  sunset  which 
Jute  and  Saxon  began ;  they  are  the  last,  the  young- 
est, and  in  politics  the  most  richly  gifted;  yet  in 
other  departments  of  human  activity  not  more 
richly  gifted  than  their  kindred  who  produced  Cyne- 
wulf  and  Caedmon,  Aidan  and  Bede,  Coifi  and 
Dunstan.  And  who  shall  affirm  from  what  branch 
of  the  stock  the  architects  of  the  sky-searching  ca- 
thedrals sprang? 


RELIGION  OF  THE  VIKINGS          69 

Senlac  is  thus  in  the  line  of  Heptarchic  battles;  it 
is  the  last  struggle  for  the  political  supremacy  over 
all  England  amongst  those  various  sections  of  the 
Northern  races  who  in  the  way  of  six  hundred  years 
make  England,  and  who  in  their  religious  and  politi- 
cal character  lay  the  unseen  foundations  of  Imperial 
Britain. 

Two  traits  of  the  Norman  character  impress  the 
greatest  of  their  contemporary  historians,  William 
of  Malmesbury  —  the  Norman  love  of  battle  and  the 
Norman  love  of  God.  Upon  these  two  ideas  the 
history  of  the  Middle  Age  turns.  The  crusader,  the 
monk,  the  troubadour,  the  priest,  the  mystic,  the 
dreamer  and  the  saint,  the  wandering  scholar  and 
the  scholastic  philosopher,  all  derive  thence.  Chiv- 
alry is  born.  The  knight  beholds  in  his  lady's  face 
on  earth  the  image  of  Our  Lady  in  Heaven,  the 
Virgin-Mother  of  the  Redeemer  of  men.  From  the 
grave  of  his  dead  mistress  Ramon  Lull  withdraws  to 
a  hermit's  cell  to  ponder  the  beauty  that  is  imperish- 
able; and  over  the  grave  of  Beatrice,  Dante  rears  a 
shrine,  a  temple  more  awful,  more  sublime  than  any 
which  even  that  age  has  carved  in  stone. 

Into  this  theatre  of  tossing  life,  the  nation  which 
the  followers  of  Cerdic  and  Knut  and  of  William 
the  Conqueror  have  formed  enters  greatly.  In 
thought,  in  action,  in  art,  something  of  the  mighty 
role  which  the  future  centuries  reserve  for  her  is 
portended.  The  immortal  energy,  the  love  of  war, 
the  deep  religious  fervour  of  England  find  in  the 


70  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

Crusades,  as  by  God's  own  assignment,  the  task  of 
her  heart's  desire.  We  have  but  to  turn  to  the 
churches  of  England,  to  study  the  Templars  carved 
upon  their  sepulchres,  to  know  that  in  that  great 
tournament  of  the  world  the  part  of  the  Franks,  if 
the  noisier  and  more  continuous,  was  not  more 
earnest.  How  singular  is  the  chance,  if  it  be  chance, 
which  confronts  the  followers  of  the  new  faith  with 
a  Penda,  and  the  followers  of  the  crescent  with  a 
Richard  Lion-heart!  Upon  the  shifting  Arabic  im- 
agination he  alone  of  the  infidels  exercises  enduring 
sway.  The  hero  of  Tasso  has  no  place  in  Arab 
history,  but  the  memory  of  Richard  is  there  imper- 
ishably.  Richard's  services  to  England  are  not  the 
theme  of  common  praise,  yet,  if  we  estimate  the 
greatness  of  a  king  by  another  standard  than  roods 
of  conquered  earth,  or  roods  of  parchment  black- 
ened with  unregarded  statutes,  Richard  I,  crusader 
and  poet,  must  be  reckoned  amongst  the  greatest  of 
his  great  line,  and  his  name  to  the  Europe  of  the 
Middle  Age  was  like  the  blast  of  a  trumpet  announc- 
ing the  England  of  the  years  to  come. 

§  4.       WORLD-HISTORIC   SIGNIFICANCE  OF   THE 
ENGLISH    REFORMATION 

The  crusader  of  the  twelfth  century  follows  the 
saint  of  an  earlier  age,  and  in  the  thirteenth,  Eng- 
land, made  one  in  political  and  constitutional  ideals, 
attains  a  source  of  profounder  religious  unity.  The 
consciousness  that  not  to  Rome,  but  to  Galilee  itself 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        71 

she  may  turn  for  the  way,  the  truth,  the  light,  has 
arisen.  In  the  steady  development,  in  the  ever- 
deepening  power  of  this  consciousness,  lies  the  un- 
written history  of  the  English  Reformation.  The 
race  resolves  no  more  to  trust  to  other  witness,  but 
with  its  own  eyes  to  look  upon  the  truth. 

Political  history  has  its  effect  upon  the  growth  of 
this  conviction.  In  the  fourteenth  century,  for  in- 
stance, the  Papacy  is  at  Avignon.  Edward  I  in  the 
beginning  of  that  century  withstands  Boniface 
VIII,  the  last  great  pontiff  in  whom  the  temper  and 
resolution  of  Hildebrand  appear,  as  William  the 
Conqueror  had  withstood  Gregory  VII.  The  stat- 
ute of  praemunire,  a  generation  later,  prepares  the 
way  for  Wyclif.  The  Papacy  is  now  but  an  ap- 
panage of  the  Valois  monarchs.  How  shall  Eng- 
land, conqueror  of  those  monarchs  at  Crecy  and  on 
other  fields,  reverence  Rome,  the  dependent  of  a 
defeated  antagonist? 

The  same  bright  energy  of  the  soul,  the  same  awe, 
rooted  in  the  blood  of  our  race,  which  manifest 
themselves  in  the  early  and  Middle  Ages,  determine 
the  character  of  the  religious  history  of  the  six- 
teenth and  seventeenth  centuries.  In  the  fifteenth 
century,  suffering  and  the  presence  of  suffering,  the 
law  of  tragedy  of  which  we  have  spoken,  add  their 
transforming  power  to  spiritual  life.  As  in  politi- 
cal life  the  sympathy  with  the  wrongs  of  others 
grows  into  imaginative  justice,  so  sympathy  with 
the  faiths  of  others,  which  springs  from  the  con- 


72  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

sciousness  of  the  first  great  illusion  lost,  and  sorrow 
for  a  vanished  ideal,  grows  into  tolerance  for  the 
creeds  and  religions  of  others.  For  only  a  race 
deep-centred  in  its  own  faith,  yet  sensitive  to  the 
faith  that  is  in  others,  can  understand  the  religion 
of  others;  only  such  a  race  can  found  an  empire 
characterised  at  once  by  freedom  and  by  faith. 

The  very  ardour  of  the  belief  of  the  race  in  the 
ideal  from  Rome  —  a  Semitic  ideal,  transmuted  by 
Roman  genius  and  policy  —  swept  the  Teutonic  im- 
agination beyond  the  ideal,  seeking  its  sources  where 
Rome  herself  had  sought  them.  This  is  the  im- 
pulse which  binds  the  whole  Englis'h  Reformation, 
the  whole  movement  of  English  religious  thought 
from  Wyclif  to  Cromwell  and  Milton,  to  Words- 
worth and  Carlyle.  It  is  this  common  impulse  of 
the  race  which  Henry  VIII  relies  upon,  and  because 
he  is  in  this  their  leader  the  English  people  forgets 
his  absolutism,  his  cruel  anger,  his  bloody  revenges. 
The  character  of  the  English  Reformation  after  the 
first  tumultuous  conflicts,  the  fierce  essays  of  royal 
theocracy  and  Jesuit  reactionism,  set  steadily  to- 
wards Liberty  of  Conscience. 

This  spirit  is  glorified  in  Puritanism,  the  true 
heroic  age  of  the  Reformation.  It  appears,  for  ex- 
ample, in  Oliver  Cromwell  himself.  Cromwell  is 
one  of  the  disputed  figures  in  our  history,  and  every 
English  historian  has  drawn  his  own  Cromwell. 
But  to  foreign  historians  we  may  look  for  a  judg- 
ment less  partial,  less  personal.  Dr.  Dollinger,  for 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        73 

instance,  to  whom  wide  sympathy  and  long  and  pro- 
found study  of  history  have  given  the  right,  which 
can  only  be  acquired  by  vigil  and  fasting,  to  speak 
about  the  characters  of  the  past  —  he  who  by  his  po- 
sition as  Romanist  is  no  pledged  admirer,  describes 
Cromwell  as  the  "prophet  of  Liberty  of  Con- 
science." 17  This  is  the  deliberate  judgment  of 
Dollinger.  It  was  the  judgment  of  the  peasants  of 
the  Vaudois  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago! 
Somewhat  the  same  impression  was  made  by  Crom- 
well upon  Voltaire,  Victor  Hugo,  and  Guizot. 

Again  in  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  Irene  of 
Drummond,  and  in  the  remarkable  work 'of  Barclay, 

17  Dollinger's  characterisation  of  Cromwell  is  remarkable  — 
"  Aber  er  (i.e.,  Cromwell)  hat,  zuerst  unter  den  Machtigen, 
ein  religioses  Princip  aufgestellt  und,  soweit  sein  Arm  reichte, 
zur  Geltung  gebracht,  welches,  im  Gegensatz  gegen  die  gros- 
sen  historischen  Kirchen  und  gegen  den  Islam,  Keim  und 
Stoff  zu  einer  abgesonderten  Religion  in  sich  trug:  —  das 
Princip  der  Gewissensfreiheit,  der  Verwerfung  alles  relig- 
iosen  Zwanges."  Proceeding  to  expand  this  idea,  Dollinger 
again  describes  Cromwell  as  the  annunciator  of  the  doctrine 
of  the  inviolability  of  conscience,  so  vast  in  its  significance  to 
the  modern  world,  and  adds :  "  Es  war  damals  von  weittra- 
gender  Bedeutung,  dass  der  Beherrscher  eines  machtigen 
Reiches  diese  neue  Lehre  verkiindete,  die  dann  noch  fast  an- 
derthalb  Jahrhunderte  brauchte,  bis  sie  in  der  offentlichen 
Meinung  so  erstarkte,  dass  auch  ihre  noch  immer  zahlreichen 
Gegner  sich  vor  ihr  beugen  miissen.  Die  Evangelische  Union, 
welche  jetzt  zwei  Welttheile  umfasst  und  ein  friiher  unbe- 
kanntes  und  fur  unmoglich  gehaltenes  Princip  der  Einigung 
verschiedener  Kirchen  gliicklich  verwirklicht  hat,  darf  wohl 
Cromwell  als  ihren  Propheten  und  vorbereitenden  Grunder 
betrachten." — Akademische  Vortr'dge,  1891,  vol.  iii,  pp.  55,  56. 


74  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

the  Argenis,18  in  its  whole  conception  of  the  religious 
life,  of  monasticism,  as  in  its  idealisation  of  the 
character  of  the  great  Henri  Quatre,  you  find  the 
same  desire  for  a  wider  ideal,  not  less  in  religion 
than  in  politics.  We  encounter  it  later  in  Shaftes- 
bury  and  in  Locke.  It  is  the  essential  thought  of 
the  work  of  Thomas  Hobbes.  It  is  supremely  and 
beautifully  expressed  in  Algernon  Sidney,  the  mar- 
tyr of  constitutional  freedom  and  of  tolerance. 

And  what  is  the  faith  of  Algernon  Sidney  ?  One 
who  knew  him  well,  though  opposed  to  his  party, 
said  of  him,  "  He  regards  Christianity  as  a  kind  of 
divine  philosophy  of  the  mind."  Community  of 
religious  not  less  than  of  political  aims  binds  closer 
the  friendship  of  Locke  and  Shaftesbury.  In  the 
preparation  of  a  constitution  for  the  Carolinas  they 
found  the  opportunity  which  Corsica  offered  to 
Rousseau.  In  the  Letters  on  Toleration  19  Locke  did 

18  The  Argents  was  published  in  1621 ;  but  amongst  the  ideas 
on  religion,  carefully  elaborated  or  obscurely  suggested,  which 
throng  its  pages,  we  find  curious  anticipations  of  the  position 
of  Locke  and  even  of  Hume,  just  as  in  politics,  in  the  re- 
marks on  elective  monarchy  put  in  the  lips  of  the  Cardinal 
Ubaldini,  or  in  the  conceptions  of  justice  and  law,  Barclay 
reveals  a  sympathy  with  principles  which  appealed  to  Alger- 
non Sidney  or  were  long  afterwards  developed  by  Beccaria. 
In  the  motion  of  the  stars  Barclay  sees  the  proof  of  the  exist- 
ence of  God,  and  requires  no  other.    The  Argents,  unfortu- 
nately  for   English  literature,  was  written  at  a  time  when 
men   still   wavered   between  the  vernacular   and   Latin   as   a 
medium  of  expression. 

19  The  spirit  and  tendency  of  Locke's  work  appear  in  the 
short  preface  to  the  English  version  of  the  Latin  Epistola  de 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        75 

but  expand  the  principles  upon  which,  with  Shaftes- 
bury's  aid,  he  elaborated  the  government  of  the 
new  State.  The  Record  Office  has  no  more  precious 
document  than  the  draught  of  that  work,  the  mar- 
gins covered  with  corrections  in  the  handwriting  of 
these  two  men,  the  one  the  greatest  of  the  Restora- 
tion statesmen,  the  other  ranking  amongst  the  great- 
est speculative  thinkers  of  his  own  or  any  age.  One 
suggested  formula  after  another  is  traceable  there, 
till  at  length  the  decision  is  made,  that  from  the 
citizens  of  the  new  State  shall  be  exacted,  not  ad- 
herence to  this  creed  or  to  that,  but  simply  the  decla- 
ration, "  There  is  a  God."  Algernon  Sidney  aids 
Penn  in  performing  a  similar  task  for  Pennsylvania, 
and  their  joint  work  is  informed  by  the  same 
spirit  as  the  "  Constitutions  "of  Locke  and  Shaftes- 
bury. 

Tolerantia,  which  had  already  met  with  a  general  approba- 
tion in  France  and  Holland  (1689).  "This  narrowness  of 
spirit  on  all  sides  has  undoubtedly  been  the  principal  occasion 
of  our  miseries  and  confusions.  But  whatever  has  been  the 
occasion,  it  is  now  high  time  to  seek  for  a  thorough  cure. 
We  have  need  of  more  generous  remedies  than  what  have 
yet  been  made  use  of  in  our  distemper.  It  is  neither  declara- 
tions of  indulgence,  nor  acts  of  comprehension,  such  as  have 
yet  been  practised,  or  projected  amongst  us,  that  can  do  the 
work.  The  first  will  but  palliate,,  the  second  increase  our  evil. 
Absolute  Liberty,  just  and  true  Liberty,  equal  and  impartial 
Liberty,  is  the  thing  that  we  stand  in  need  of."  The  second 
Letter,  styled  "A  Second  Letter  concerning  Toleration,"  is 
dated  May  27th,  1690  —  the  year  of  the  publication  of  his 
Essay  o-n  the  Human  Understanding;  the  third,  the  longest, 
and  in  some  respects  the  most  eloquent,  "A  Third  Letter  for 
Toleration,"  bears  the  date  June  2Oth,  1692. 


76  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

Thus  in  religion  the  men  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury occupy  a  position  analogous  to  their  position 
in  politics,  already  delineated.  In  politics,  as  we 
have  seen,  they  establish  a  constitutional  govern- 
ment, and  make  sure  the  path  to  the  wider  freedom 
of  the  future.  In  religion  they  fix  the  principles  of 
that  philosophic  tolerance  which  the  later  centuries 
develop  and  apply.  Both  in  politics  and  in  religion 
they  turn  aside  from  the  mediaeval  imperialism  of 
Bourbon  and  Hapsburg,  consciously  or  uncon- 
sciously preparing  the  foundations  of  the  Imperial- 
ism of  to-day. 

If  the  divines,  scholars,  poets,  and  wits  who  met 
and  talked  under  the  roof  of  the  young  Lord  Falk- 
land at  Tew  represent  in  their  religious  and  civil 
perplexities  the  spirit  of  the  seventeenth  century, 
within  the  intersecting  circles  of  Pope  and  Boling- 
broke,  Swift  and  Addison,  may  be  found  in  one 
form  or  another  all  the  varied  impulses  of  the  eight- 
eenth—  intellectual,  political,  scientific,  literary,  or 
religious.  England  had  succeeded  to  the  place 
which  Holland  filled  in  the  days  of  Descartes  and 
Spinoza  —  the  refuge  of  the  oppressed,  the  home  of 
political  and  religious  freedom,  the  study  of  Mon- 
tesquieu, the  asylum  of  Voltaire.20  Yet  between 

20  Voltaire  ridiculed  certain  peculiarities  of  Shakespeare 
when  mediocre  French  writers  and  critics  began  to  find  in 
his  "  barbarities "  an  excuse  for  irreverence  at  the  expense 
of  Racine,  but  he  never  tires  of  reiterating  his  admiration  for 
the  country  of  Locke  and  Hume,  of  Bolingbroke  and  Newton. 
A  hundred  phrases  could  be  gathered  from  his  correspond- 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        77 

the  England  of  the  eighteenth  and  the  England  of 
the  seventeenth  century  there  is  no  such  deep  gulf 
fixed  as  Carlyle  at  one  period  of  his  literary  activity 
imagined.  The  one  is  the  organic  inevitable  growth 
of  the  other.  The  England  which  fought  at  Blen- 
heim, Fontenoy,  and  Quebec  is  the  same  England  as 
fought  at  Marston  Moor  and  Dunbar.  Chatham  res- 
cued it  from  a  deeper  abasement  than  that  into  which 
it  had  fallen  in  the  days  of  the  Cavalier  parliaments, 
and  it  followed  him  to  heights  unrecked  of  by  Crom- 
well. Nor  is  the  religious  character  of  the  century 
less  profound,  less  earnestly  reverent,  when  rightly 
studied.  Even  its  scepticism,  its  fiery  denials,  or 
vehement  inquiry  —  a  Woolston's,  for  instance,  or  a 
Cudworth's,  like  a  Shelley's  or  a  James  Thomson's  21 

ence  extending  over  half  a  century,  in  which  this  finds  serious 
or  extravagant  utterance.  Even  in  the  last  decades  of  his 
life,  when  he  sees  the  France  of  the  future  arising,  he  writes 
to  Madame  Du  Deffand :  "  How  trivial  we  are  compared  with 
the  Greeks,  the  Romans,  and  the  English  " ;  and  to  Helvetius, 
about  the  same  period  (1765),  he  admits  the  profound  debts 
which  France  and  Europe  owe  to  the  adventurous  thought  of 
England.  He  even  forces  Frederick  the  Great  into  reluctant 
but  definite  acquiescence  with  his  enthusiasm — "Yes,  you  are 
right ;  you  French  have  grace,  the  English  have  the  depth,  and 
we  Germans,  we  have  caution." 

21  James  Thomson,  who  distinguished  himself  from  the  au- 
thor of  the  Seasons,  and  defined  his  own  literary  aims  by  the 
initials  B.  V.,  i.e.,  Bysshe  Vonalis  (Novalis),  though  possess- 
ing neither  the  wide  scholarship  nor  the  depth  of  thought  of 
Leopardi,  occasionally  equals  the  great  Italian  in  felicity  of 
phrase  and  in  the  poignant  expression  of  the  world-sorrow. 
Several  of  the  more  violent  pamphlets  on  religious  themes 


78  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

long  afterwards  —  spring  from  no  love  of  darkness, 
but  from  the  immortal  ardour  for  the  light,  for 
Truth,  even  if  there  come  with  it  silence  and  utter 
death.  And  from  this  same  ardour  arises  that  ex- 
traordinary outburst  of  varied  intellectual  and  re- 
ligious effort,  critical  or  constructive,  which  makes 
the  Revolutionary  and  the  Georgian  eras  compara- 
ble in  energy,  if  not  in  height  of  speculative  inquiry, 
to  the  great  period  of  the  Aufklarung  in  Germany. 
Kant  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to  Hume. 
Rousseau,  Voltaire,  Condillac,  and  Helvetius  are  in 
philosophic  theory  but  pupils  of  Locke. 

Towards  the  close  of  the  century  appeared  Gib- 
bon's great  work,  the  Decline  and  Fall,  a  prose  epic 
in  seventy-one  books,  upon  the  last  victories,  the  last 
triumphs,  and  the  long,  reluctant  death-struggles  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  the  insidious  advance  of  inner 
decay,  the  ever-renewed  assaults  of  foreign  violence, 
the  Goth,  the  Saracen,  the  Mongol,  and  at  the  close, 
the  leaguering  lines  of  Mahomet,  the  farewell  to  the 
Greeks  of  the  last  of  the  Constantines,  the  Otto- 
mans in  the  palaces  of  the  Caesars,  and  the  melan- 
choly musings  of  an  Italian  scholar  over  the  ruins 
on  the  Seven  Hills.  An  epic  in  prose  —  and  every 
one  of  its  books  might  be  compared  to  the  gem-en- 
crusted hilt  of  a  sword,  and  each  wonderfully 
wrought  jewel  is  a  sentence;  but  the  point  of  the 
sword,  like  that  of  the  cherubim,  is  everywhere 

ascribed  to  him  are  of  doubtful  authenticity.  He  died  in  1882, 
the  year  after  the  death  of  Carlyle. 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        79 

turned  against  superstition,  bigotry,  and  religious 
wrong. 

David  Hume's  philosophy  was  more  read 22  in 

22  Hume's  disappointment  at  the  reception  accorded  to  the 
first  quarto  of  his  History  of  England  must  be  measured  by 
the  standard  of  the  hopes  he  had  formed.  Conscious  of 
genius,  and  not  without  ambition,  he  had  reached  middle  life 
nameless,  and  save  in  a  narrow  circle  unacknowledged.  But 
the  appearance  of  his  History,  two  years  later  than  his  Politi- 
cal Discourses,  was  synchronous  with  the  darkest  hours  in 
English  annals  since  1667.  An  English  fleet  had  to  quit  the 
Channel  before  the  combined  navies  of  France  and  Spain ; 
Braddock  was  defeated  at  Fort  Duquesne;  Minorca  was  lost. 
At  this  period  the  tide  of  ill-feeling  between  the  Scotch  and 
the  English  ran  bitter  and  high.  The  taunts  of  individuals 
were  but  the  explosions  of  a  resentment  deep-seated  and 
strong.  London  had  not  yet  forgotten  the  panic  which  the 
march  of  the  Pretender  had  roused.  To  the  Scottish  nation 
the  massacre  at  Culloden  seemed  an  act  of  revenge  —  savage, 
premeditated,  and  impolitic.  The  ministry  of  Chatham 
changed  all  this.  He  raised  an  army  from  the  clans  who  ten 
years  before  had  marched  to  the  heart  of  England;  ended  the 
privileges  of  the  coterie  of  Whig  families,  bestowing  the  posts 
of  danger  and  power  not  upon  the  fearless  but  frequently 
incapable  sons  of  the  great  houses,  but  upon  the  talent  bred 
in  the  ranks  of  English  merchants.  Hume's  work  was  thus 
caught  in  the  stream  of  Chatham's  victories,  and  a  ray  from 
the  glory  of  the  nation  was  reflected  upon  its  historian.  The 
general  verdict  was  ratified  by  the  concord  of  the  best  judg- 
ments. Gibbon  despaired  of  rivalling  its  faultless  lucidity; 
Burke  turned  from  a  projected  History  to  write  in  Hume's 
manner  the  events  of  the  passing  years,  founding  the  Annual 
Register.  Its  outspoken  Toryism  was  welcome  to  a  genera- 
tion weary  of  the  "Venetian  oligarchy,"  this  epoch,  if  any, 
meriting  Beaconsfield's  epithet.  The  work  had  the  fortune 
which  Gibbon  and  Montesquieu  craved  for  their  own  —  it  was 
read  in  the  boudoir  as  much  as  in  the  study.  Nor  did  its 


8o  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

France  than  in  Scotland  or  England,  but  Hume 
wrote  one  book  here  widely  read,  his  History  of 
England.  It  has  been  superseded,  but  it  did  what 
it  aimed  at  doing.  There  are  certain  books  which, 
when  they  have  done  their  work,  are  forgotten,  the 
Dialectique  of  Ramus,  for  instance.  This  is  not  to 
be  regretted.  Hume's  History  of  England  is  one  of 
these  books.  For  nearly  four  generations  it  was 
the  only  history  of  England  that  English  men  and 
women  read.  It  was  impossible  that  a  man  like 
Hume,  the  central  principle  of  whose  life  was  the 
same  as  that  of  Locke,  Shaftesbury,  Gibbon  —  the 
desire  for  a  larger  freedom  for  man's  thought  —  it 
was  impossible  for  him  to  write  without  saturating 
every  page  with  that  purpose,  and  it  was  impossible 
that  three  generations  could  read  that  History  with- 
out being  insensibly,  unconsciously  transformed, 
their  aspirations  elevated,  their  judgments  moulded 
by  contact  with  such  a  mind  as  that  of  Hume. 

Recently  the  work  of  the  great  intellects  of  these 
two  centuries  bears  fruit  in  our  changed  attitude 
towards  Ireland,  in  the  emancipation  of  the  Catho- 
lics there;  in  our  changed  attitude  towards  the 
Jews,  towards  the  peoples  of  India,  towards  Islam. 
Edward  Gibbon  and  Hume  laid  the  foundation  of 

power  diminish.  It  contained  the  best  writing,  the  deepest 
thought,  the  most  vivid  portraiture,  devoted  to  men  and 
things  English,  over  a  continuous  period,  until  the  works  of 
Carlyle  and  Macaulay. 


THE  ENGLISH  REFORMATION        81 

that  college  which  is  rising  at  Khartoum  for  the 
teaching  of  Mohammedanism  under  the  Queen.  It 
was  not  only  Lord  Kitchener  who  built  it;  John 
Locke,  John  Milton,  built  it. 

The  saint,  the  crusader,  the  monk,  reformer, 
puritan,  and  non juror  lead  in  unbroken  succession 
to  the  critic,  the  speculative  thinker,  the  analytic 
or  synthetic  philosopher  of  the  eighteenth  and  the 
nineteenth  century,  these  representing  Imperial 
Britain,  as  the  former  represent  national  or  feudal 
England.  Erigena  in  the  ninth  century  surveying 
all  things  as  from  a  tall  rock,  Dunstan,  Roger  Bacon 
wasting  in  a  prison  "  through  the  incurable  stupidity 
of  the  world,"  as  he  briefly  explains  it,  Michael 
Scott,  Hooker,  Bacon,  Glanvil,  Milton,  and  Locke, 
formed  by  England,  these  men  have  in  turn  guided 
or  informed  the  highest  aspirations,  the  very  heart 
of  the  race.  The  greatest  empire  in  the  annals  of 
mankind  is  at  once  the  most  earnestly  religious  and 
the  most  tolerant.  Her  power  is  deep-based  as  the 
foundations  of  the  rocks,  her  glance  wide  as  the 
boundaries  of  the  world,  far-searching  as  the  aeons 
of  time. 

Yet  it  is  not  only  from  within,  but  from  without, 
that  this  transformation  in  the  spirit  of  England 
has  been  effected;  not  only  from  within  by  the 
work  of  a  Sidney,  a  Gibbon,  but  from  without  by 
the  influence,  imperceptible  yet  sure,  of  the  faiths 
and  creeds  of  the  Oriental  peoples  she  conquers. 


82  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

The  work  of  the  Arabists  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries,  such  men  as  the  Pocockes,23 
father  and  son,  Ockley  and  Sale,  supplements  or 
expands  the  teaching  of  Locke  and  of  Hume.  The 
industry  of  Ross,  the  enthusiastic  studies  of  Sir 
William  Jones,  brought  the  power  of  Persian  and 
Indian  thought  to  bear  upon  the  English  mind,  and 
the  efforts  of  all  these  men  seem  to  converge  in  one 
of  the  greatest  literary  monuments  of  the  present 
century  — The  Sacred  Books  of  the  East. 

Thus  then  we  have  seen  this  immortal  "  energy 
of  the  soul "  in  religion  and  thought,  as  in  politics, 
manifest  itself  in  like  aspirations  towards  imagina- 
tive freedom,  the  higher  freedom  and  the  higher 
justice,  summed  in  the  phrase  "  Elargissez  Dieu," 
that  man's  soul,  dowered  with  the  unfettered  use 
of  all  its  faculties,  may  set  towards  the  lodestar  of 
its  being,  harmony  with  the  Divine,  whether  it  be 
through  freedom  in  religious  life  or  in  political  life 
or  in  any  other  form  of  life.  For  all  life,  all  being, 
is  organic,  ceaselessly  transformed,  ceaselessly  trans- 
forming, ceaseless  action  and  interaction,  like  that 
vision  of  Goethe's  of  the  golden  chalices  ascending 
and  descending  perpetually  between  heaven  and  this 
dark  earth  of  ours. 

28  The  significance  of  these  men's  work  may  be  estimated  by 
the  ignorance  even  of  scholars  and  tolerant  thinkers.  Spi- 
noza, for  instance,  in  1675,  describes  Islam  as  a  faith  that  has 
known  no  schism;  and  twenty  years  earlier  Pascal  brands 
Mohammed  as  forbidding  all  study! 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST  83 

§    5.      THE  TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST!  A   FINAL 
CONSIDERATION 

Before  leaving  this  part  of  our  subject,  the  testi- 
mony of  the  past,  there  is  one  more  question  to  con- 
sider, though  with  brevity.  The  great  empires  or 
imperial  races  of  the  past,  Hellas,  Rome,  Egypt, 
Persia,  Islam,  represent  each  a  distinct  ideal  —  in 
each  a  separate  aspect  of  the  human  soul,  as  the 
characterising  attribute  of  the  race,  seems  incar- 
nate. In  Hellas,  for  example,  it  is  Beauty,  TO  KoAoV ; 
in  Rome,  it  is  Power ;  in  Egypt,  Mystery,  as  embod- 
ied in  her  temples,  half -underground,  or  in  the 
Sphinx  that  guards  the  sepulchres  of  her  kings; 
whilst  in  Persia,  Beauty  and  Aspiration  seem  to 
unite  in  that  mystic  curiosity  which  is  the  feature 
at  once  of  her  religion,  her  architecture,  her  laws, 
of  Magian  ritual  and  Gnostic  theurgy.  Other  races 
possess  these  qualities,  love  of  beauty,  the  sense  of 
mystery ;  but  in  Hellas  and  in  Egypt  they  differen- 
tiate the  race  and  all  the  sections  of  the  race. 

What  characteristic,  then,  common  to  the  whole 
Teutonic  race,  does  this  Empire  of  Britain  repre- 
sent? Apart  altogether  from  its  individual  ideal, 
political  or  religious,  what  attribute  of  the  race,  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  other  races,  the  Hellenic,  the 
Roman,  the  Persian,  does  it  eminently  possess? 

Compare,  first  of  all,  the  beginnings  of  the  people 
of  England  with  the  beginnings  of  the  Hellenic  peo- 
ple, or  better,  perhaps,  with  the  beginnings  of  Rome. 


84  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

Who  founded  the  Roman  State?  There  is  one  fact 
about  which  the  most  recent  authorities  agree  with 
the  most  ancient,  that  Rome  was  founded  much  as 
Athens  was  founded,  by  desperate  men  from  every 
city,  district,  region,  in  Italy.  The  outlaw,  the 
refugee  from  justice  or  from  private  vengeance,  the 
landless  man  and  the  homeless  man  —  these  gath- 
ered in  the  "  Broad  Plain,"  or  migrated  together  to 
the  Seven  Hills,  and  by  the  very  extent  of  the  walls 
which  they  traced  marked  the  plan  which  the  Rome 
of  the  Caesars  filled  in.  This  process  may  have  ex- 
tended over  a  century  —  over  two  centuries ;  Rome 
drawing  to  itself  ever  new  bands  of  adventurers, 
desperate  in  valour  and  in  fortune  as  the  first.  Who 
are  the  founders  of  England,  of  Imperial  Britain? 
They  are  those  "  co-seekers,"  conquccstores,  I  have 
spoken  of,  who  came  with  Cerdic  and  with  Cynric, 
the  chosen  men,  that  is  to  say,  the  most  adventurous, 
most  daring,  most  reckless  —  the  fittest  men  of  the 
whole  Teutonic  kindred ;  and  not  for  two  centuries 
merely,  but  for  six  centuries,  this  "  land  of  the 
Angles,"  stretching  from  the  Forth  and  Clyde  to  the 
Channel,  from  Eadwine's  Burgh  to  Andredeswald, 
draws  to  itself,  and  is  gradually  ever  peopled  closer 
and  closer  with,  Vikings  and  Danes,  Norsemen  and 
Ostmen,  followers  of  Guthrum,  and  followers  of 
Hrolf,  followers  of  Ivar  and  followers  of  William 
I.  They  come  in  "  hundreds,"  they  come  in  thou- 
sands. Into  England,  as  into  some  vast  crucible, 
the  valour  of  the  earth  pours  itself  for  six  hundred 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST  85 

years,  till,  molten  and  fused  together,  it  arises  at 
last  one  and  undivided,  the  English  Nation.  Such 
was  the  foundation,  such  the  building  of  the  Em- 
pire, and  these  are  the  title-deeds  which  even  in  its 
first  beginnings  this  land  can  show. 

And  of  the  inner  race  character  as  representative 
of  the  whole  Teutonic  kindred,  the  testimony  is  not 
less  sure.  What  a  heaven  of  light  falls  upon  the 
Hellas  of  the  Isles,  that  period  of  its  history  which 
does  not  begin,  but  ends  with  the  Iliad  and  with  the 
Odyssey  —  works  that  sum  up  an  old  civilisation ! 
Already  is  born  that  beauty  which,  whether  in  reli- 
gion, or  in  art,  or  in  life,  Hellas  made  its  own  for- 
ever. And  it  is  not  difficult  to  trace  back  the  de- 
scent of  the  ideal  of  Virgil  and  of  Cicero  to  the 
shepherds  and  outlaws  of  the  Seven  Hills.  The  in- 
finite curiosity  of  Persia,  the  worshipper  of  flame, 
is  anticipated  on  its  earliest  monuments,  and  the 
mystery  of  Egypt  is  coeval  with  its  first  appearance 
in  history.  But  of  England  and  the  Teutonic  race 
what  shall  one  say?  A  characteristic  universal  in 
Teutonic  history  is  the  extent  to  which  the  specu- 
lative or  metaphysical  pervades  the  practical,  the 
political,  and  social  conditions  of  life.  Freedom 
and  deathless  courage  are  its  inheritance ;  but  these 
throughout  its  history  are  accompanied  by  certain 
vaguer  tendencies  of  thought  and  aspiration,  the 
touch  of  things  unseen,  those  impulses  beyond  the 
finite  towards  the  Infinite,  which  display  themselves 
so  conspicuously  in  later  ages.  In  the  united  power 


86  THE  RELIGIOUS  IDEAL 

of  these  two  worlds,  the  visible  and  the  invisible, 
upon  the  Teutonic  imagination,  in  this  alternate 
sway  of  Reality  and  Illusion,  must  be  sought  the 
characteristic  of  this  race.  In  the  Faust  legend, 
which,  in  one  form  or  another,  the  race  has  made 
its  own,  it  attains  a  supreme  embodiment.  In  the 
Oriental  imagination  the  sense  of  the  transiency  of 
life  passes  swiftly  into  a  disdain  for  life  itself,  and 
displays  itself  in  a  courage  which  arises  less  from 
hope  than  from  apathy  or  despair.  But  the  death- 
defiant  courage  of  the  Viking  springs  from  no  dis- 
dain of  life,  but  from  the  scorn  of  death,  hazard- 
ing life  rather  than  the  hope  upon  which  his  life 
is  set. 

This  characteristic  can  be  traced  throughout  the 
range  of  Teutonic  art  and  Teutonic  literature,  and 
even  in  action.  The  spirit  which  originates  the 
V olker-zvanderung ,  for  instance,  reappears  in  the 
half-unconscious  impulses,  the  instinctive  bent  of 
the  race,  which  lead  the  brave  of  Europe  generation 
by  generation  for  two  hundred  years  to  the  cru- 
sades. They  found  the  grave  empty,  but  the  crav- 
ing of  the  heart  was  stayed,  the  yearning  towards 
Asgard,  the  sun-bright  eastern  land,  where  were 
Balder  and  the  Anses,  and  the  rivers  and  meadows 
unfading,  whence  ages  ago  their  race  had  journeyed 
to  the  forest-gloom  and  mists  by  the  Danube  and 
the  Rhine,  by  the  Elbe  and  the  Thames. 

Thus,  then,  as  Beauty  is  impersonated  in  Hellas, 
Mystery  in  Egypt,  so  this  attribute  which  we  may 


TESTIMONY  OF  THE  PAST  87 

name  Reverie  is  impersonated  in  the  Teutonic  race. 

And  in  the  Anglo-Saxon  branch  of  the  great  Teu- 
tonic kindred,  this  attribute,  this  Reverie,  the  di- 
vided sway  of  the  actual  and  of  the  dream-world, 
attests  its  presence  and  its  power  from  the  earliest 
epochs.  It  has  left  its  impress,  its  melancholy,  its 
restlessness,  its  infinite  regret,  upon  the  verse  of 
Cynewulf  and  Csedmon,  whilst  in  the  devotion  of 
the  saint,  the  scholar,  the  hermit,  and  of  much  of 
the  common  life  of  the  time  to  the  ideal  of  Calvary, 
its  presence  falls  like  a  mystic  light  upon  the  turbu- 
lence and  battle- fury  of  the  eighth  and  ninth  cen- 
turies. It  adds  the  glamour  as  from  a  distant  and 
enchanted  past  to  chivalrous  romance  and  to  the 
crusader's  and  the  pilgrim's  high  endeavour.  It 
cast  its  spell  upon  the  Tudor  mariners  and  made 
the  ocean  their  inheritance.  In  later  times  it  re- 
appears as  the  world-impulse  which  has  made  our 
race  a  native  of  every  climate,  yet  jealous  of  its  tra- 
ditions, proud  of  its  birth,  unsubdued  by  its  en- 
vironment. 

If  in  the  circuit  they  marked  out  for  the  walls  of 
early  Rome  its  first  founders  seemed  to  anticipate 
the  eternal  city,  so  on  the  high  seas  the  founders  of 
England,  Jute,  Viking,  and  Norseman  seem  to  fore- 
shadow the  Empire  of  the  World,  and  by  the  surge 
or  in  the  forest  solitude,  already  to  meditate  the 
terror,  the  sorrow,  and  the  mystery,  and  the  coming 
harmonies,  of  Faustus  and  Lear,  of  Hamlet  and 
Adonais. 


PART  II 
THE  DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

HITHERTO  we  have  been  engaged  with  the  past,  with 
the  slow  growth  across  the  centuries  of  those  po- 
litical or  religious  ideals  which  now  control  the  des- 
tinies of  this  Empire,  a  movement  towards  an  ever 
higher  conception  of  man's  relations  towards  the 
Divine,  towards  other  men,  and  towards  the  State. 
To-day  a  subject  of  more  pressing  interest  confronts 
us,  but  a  subject  more  involved  also  in  the  preju- 
dices and  sympathies  which  the  violence  of  pity  or 
anger,  surprise  or  alarm,  arouses,  woven  more 
closely  to  the  living  hopes,  regrets,  and  fears  which 
compose  the  instant  of  man's  life.  We  are  in  the 
thick  of  the  deed  —  how  are  we  to  judge  it?  How 
conjure  the  phantoms  inimical  to  truth,  which  Taci- 
tus found  besetting  his  path  as  he  prepared  to  nar- 
rate the  civil  struggles  of  Galba  and  Otho  thirty 
years  after  the  event? 

Yet  one  aspect  of  the  subject  seems  free  and  ac- 
cessible, and  to  this  aspect  I  propose  to  direct  your 
attention.  The  separate  incidents  of  the  war,  and 
the  actions  of  individuals,  statesmen,  soldiers,  poli- 
ticians, journalists,  and  officials,  civil  or  military, 

91 


92         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

the  wisdom  or  the  rashness,  the  energy  or  the  sloth, 
the  wavering  or  the  resolution,  ancient  experience 
grown  half  prophetic  with  the  years,  alert  vigour, 
quick  to  perceive,  unremitting  in  pursuit,  or  in- 
genuous surprise  tardily  awaking  from  the  dream 
of  a  world  which  is  not  this  —  all  these  will  fall 
within  the  domain  of  History  some  centuries  hence 
when  what  men  saw  has  been  sifted  from  what  they 
merely  desired  to  see  or  imagined  they  saw. 

But  the  place  of  the  war  in  the  general  life  of  this 
State,  and  the  purely  psychological  question,  how 
is  the  idea  of  this  war,  in  Plato's  sense  of  that  word, 
related  to  the  idea  of  Imperial  Britain  ?  —  these  it  is 
possible  even  now  to  consider,  sine  ira  et  studio. 
What  is  its  historical  significance  compared  with 
the  wars  of  the  past,  what  is  the  presage  of  this  great 
war  —  if  it  be  a  great  war —  for  the  future? 

§    I.      THE   HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE  OF  THE   WAR 
IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

Now  the  magnitude  of  a  war  does  not  depend 
upon  the  numbers,  relative  or  absolute,  of  the  op- 
posing forces.  Fewer  men  fell  at  Salamis  than  at 
Towton,  and  in  the  battle  of  Bedr  24  the  total  force 

24  The  battle  of  Bedr  was  fought  in  the  second  year  of  the 
Hegira,  A.  D.  624,  in  a  valley  near  the  Red  Sea,  between 
Mecca  and  Medina.  The  victory  sealed  the  faith  not  only  of 
his  followers  but  of  Mohammed  himself  in  his  divine  mission. 
Mohammed  refers  to  this  triumph  in  surah  after  surah  of  the 
Koran,  as  Napoleon  lingers  over  the  memory  of  Arcola,  of 
Lodi,  or  Toulon. 


ITS  HISTORICAL  SIGNIFICANCE      93 

engaged  did  not  exceed  two  thousand,  yet  Moham- 
med's victory  changed  the  history  of  the  world. 
The  followers  of  Andreas  Hofer  were  but  a  hand- 
ful compared  with  the  army  which  marched  with  de 
Saxe  to  Tournay,  but  the  achievement  of  the  Tyro- 
lese  is  enduring  as  Fontenoy.  i  jWar  is  the  supreme 
act  in  the  life  of  a  State,  and  it  is  the  motives  which 
impel,  the  ideal  which  is  pursued,  that  determine 
the  greatness  or  insignificance  of  that  act.  It  is  the 
cause,  the  principles  in  collision  which  make  it  for- 
ever glorious,  or  swiftly  forgotten.  What,  then, 
are  the  principles  at  issue  in  the  present  war? 

The  war  in  South  Africa,  as  we  saw  in  the  open- 
ing chapter,  is  the  first  event  or  series  of  events  upon 
a  great  scale,  the  genesis  of  which  lies  in  this  force 
named  Imperialism.  It  is  the  first  conspicuous  ex- 
pression of  this  ideal  in  the  world  of  action  —  of 
heroic  action,  which  now  as  always  implies  heroic 
suffering.  No  other  war  in  our  history  is  in  its 
origins  and  its  aims  so  evidently  the  realisation,  so 
exclusively  the  result  of  this  imperial  ideal.  What- 
ever may  have  been  the  passing  designs  of  the  Gov- 
ernment, lofty  or  trivial,  whatever  the  motives  of 
individual  politicians,  this  is  the  cause  and  this  the 
ideal  by  which,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the  de- 
cision of  the  State  has  been  prescribed  and  con- 
trolled. But  the  present  war  is  not  merely  a  war 
for  an  idea,  which  of  itself  would  be  enough  to 
make  the  war,  in  M.  Thiers'  refrain,  dlgne  de  I'at- 
tention  des  hommes;  but,  like  the  wars  of  the  six- 


94         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

teenth  century  or  the  French  Revolutionary  Wars, 
it  is  a  war  between  two  ideals,  between  two  princi- 
ples that  strike  deep  into  the  life-history  of  modern 
States. 

In  the  religious  wars  of  the  sixteenth  century  the 
principle  of  freedom  was  arrayed  against  the  prin- 
ciple of  authority.  The  conflict  rolled  hither  and 
thither  for  two  centuries,  and  was  illustrated  by 
the  valour  and  genius  of  Europe,  by  characters  and 
incidents  of  imposing  grandeur,  sublime  devotion, 
or  moving  pity.  So  in  the  war  of  the  French  Revo- 
lution the  dying  principle  of  Monarchism  was  ar- 
rayed against  the  principle  of  Democracy,  and  the 
tragic  heroism  with  which  the  combatants  repre- 
sented these  principles,  whether  Austria,  Russia, 
Spain,  England,  Germany,  or  France,  makes  that 
war  one  of  the  most  precious  memories  of  mankind. 

In  the  tragedies  of  art,  in  stage-drama,  the  con- 
flict, the  struggle  is  between  two  principles,  two 
forces,  one  base,  the  other  exalted.  But  in  the 
world-drama  a  conflict  of  a  profounder  kind  reveals 
itself,  the  conflict  between  heroism  and  heroism,  be- 
tween ideal  and  ideal,  often  equally  lofty,  equally 
impressive. 

Such  is  the  eternal  contrast  between  the  tragic  in 
Art  and  the  tragic  in  History,  and  this  character- 
istic of  these  two  great  conflicts  of  the  sixteenth  and 
the  eighteenth  centuries  reappears  in  the  present 
war.  There  also  two  principles  equally  lofty  and 
impressive  are  at  strife  —  the  dying  principle  of  Na- 


NATIONALITY  AND  IMPERIALISM      95 

tionality,  and  the  principle  which,  for  weal  or  woe, 
is  that  of  the  future,  the  principle  of  Imperialism. 
These  are  the  forces  contending  against  each  other 
on  the  sterile  veldt ;  this  is  the  first  act  of  the  drama 
whose  denouement  —  who  dare  foretell?  What 
distant  generation  shall  behold  that  curtain? 

§    2.       NATIONALITY    AND    IMPERIALISM 

In  political  life,  in  the  life-history  of  states,  as 
in  religious,  as  in  intellectual  and  social  history, 
change  and  growth,  or  what  we  now  name  Evolu- 
tion, are  perpetual,  continuous,  unresting.  The  em- 
pire which  has_cease<l  to_advance  has_begun  to  .re- 
cede. Motion  is  the  law  of  its  being,  if  not  towards 
a  fuller  life,  motion  toward  death.  Thus  in  a  race 
dowered  with  the  genius  for  empire,  as  Rome  was, 
as  Britain  is,  Imperialism  is  the  supreme,  the  crown- 
ing form,  which  in  this  process  of  evolution  it  at- 
tains. The  civic,  the  feudal,  or  the  oligarchic  State 
passes  into  the  national,  the  national  into  the  im- 
perial, by  slow  or  swift  gradations,  but  irresistibly, 
as  by  a  fixed  law  of  nature.  No  great  statesman 
is  ever  in  advance  of,  or  ever  behind,  his  age.  The 
patriot  is  he  who  is  most  faithful  to  the  highest 
form,  to  the  actualised  ideal  of  his  time.  Eliot  in 
the  seventeenth  century  died  for  the  constitutional 
rights  of  a  nation ;  in  the  thirteenth  he  would  have 
stood  with  the  feudal  lords  at  Runnymede;  in  the 
nineteenth  he  would  have  added  his  great  name  to 
imperialism. 


96         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

The  national  is  thus  but  a  phase  in  the  onward 
movement  of  an  imperial  State,  of  a  race  destined 
to  empire.  In  such  a  State,  Nationality  has  no  pe- 
culiar sanctity,  no  fixed,  immutable  influence,  no 
absolute  sway.  The  term  National,  indeed,  has  re- 
cently acquired  in  politics  and  in  literature  some- 
thing of  the  halo  which  in  the  beginning  of  the 
century  belonged  to  the  idea  of  liberty  alone.  The 
part  which  it  has  played  in  Bohemia  and  Hungary, 
Belgium  and  Holland,  Servia  and  Bulgaria,  and, 
above  all,  in  the  unity  of  Italy  and  the  realisation 
after  four  centuries  of  Machiavelli's  dream,  is  a 
living  witness  of  its  power.  In  the  Middle  Age 
the  two  ideas,  nationality  and  independence,  were 
inseparable,  but  with  the  completion  of  the  State 
system  of  Europe,  the  rise  of  Prussia  and  the  trans- 
formation of  the  half -oriental  Muscovy  into  the 
Empire  of  the  Czars,  and  with  the  growth  in  Euro- 
pean politics  of  the  Balance-of- Power  25  theory,  a 

25  Gentz'  work  on  the  Balance  of  Power,  Fragmente  aus  der 
neuesten  Geschichte  des  politischen  Gleichgewichtes  in  Europa, 
Dresden,  1806,  is  still,  not  only  from  its  environment,  but 
from  its  conviction,  the  classic  on  this  subject.  It  gained  him 
the  friendship  of  Metternich,  and  henceforth  he  became  the 
constant  and  often  reckless  and  violent  exponent  of  Austrian 
principles.  But  he  was  sincere.  To  the  charge  of  being  the 
Aretino  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  Gentz  could  retort  with  Mira- 
beau  that  he  was  paid,  not  bought.  The  friendship  of  Rahel 
and  Varnhagen  von  Ense  acquits  him  of  suspicion.  Nor  is 
his  undying  hostility  to  the  Revolution  more  surprising  than 
that  of  Burke,  whom  he  translated,  or  of  Rivarol,  whose 
•lusive  but  studied  grace  of  style  he  not  unsuccessfully  imi- 


NATIONALITY  AND  IMPERIALISM      97 

disruption  occurred  between  these  ideas,  and  a 
series  of  protected  nationalities  arose. 

Indeed,  as  we  recede  from  the  event,  the  Revo- 
lution of  1848  presents  itself  ever  more  definitely 
as  it  appeared  to  certain  of  its  actors,  and  to  a  few 
of  the  more  speculative  onlookers,  as  but  an  after- 
math of  1789  and  1793,  as  the  net  return,  the  prac- 
tical result  to  France  and  to  Europe  of  the  glorious 
sacrifices  and  hopes  of  the  revolutionary  era.  Na- 
tionality was  the  occasion  and  the  excuse  of  1848; 
but  the  ideal  was  a  shadow  from  the  past.  The 
men  of  that  time  do  not  differ  more  widely  from 
the  men  of  1789  than  Somers  and  Halifax  differ 
from  the  great  figures  of  the  earlier  revolution, 
Pym,  Strafford,  and  Cromwell.26  The  amazing 

tated.  Gentz,  who  was  in  his  twelfth  year  at  Bunker's  Hill, 
in  his  twenty-sixth  when  the  Bastille  fell,  lived  just  long 
enough  to  see  the  Revolution  of  1830  and  the  flight  of  Charles 
X.  But  the  shock  of  the  Revolution  of  July  seemed  but  a 
test  of  the  strength  of  the  fabric  which  he  had  aided  Metter- 
nich  to  rear.  So  that  as  life  closed  Gentz  could  look  around 
on  a  completed  task.  Napoleon  slept  at  St.  Helena ;  his  child, 
le  fils  de  I'homme,  was  in  a  seclusion  that  would  shortly  end 
in  the  grave;  Canning  was  dead  and  Byron;  Heine  was  in 
exile,  Chateaubriand,  a  peer;  quotusquisque  reliquus  qui  rem- 
publicam  vidisset?  who  was  there  any  longer  to  remember 
Marengo  and  Austerlitz,  Wagram,  and  Schonbrunn?  And  yet 
exactly  seven  months  and  nineteen  days  after  Gentz  breathed 
his  last,  the  first  reformed  parliament  met  at  Westminster, 
January  29th,  1833,  announcing  the  advent  to  power  of  a 
democracy  even  mightier  than  that  of  1789. 

26  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  indicate  that  allusions  to  the 
"  glorious  but  bloodless  "  revolution  of  1688  are  unwarranted 
and  pointless  when  designed  to  tarnish,  by  the  contrast  they 


98         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

confusion  which  attends  the  efforts  of  French  and 
German  publicists  to  expand  the  concept  of  the  Na- 
tion supports  the  evidence  of  history  that  the  great 
/role  which  it  has  played  is  transient  and  accidental, 
and  that  it  is  not  the  final  and  definite  form  towards 
which  the  life  of  a  State  moves/'  It  is  one  thing 
to  exalt  the  grandeur  of  this  ideal  for  Italy  or  for 
France,  but  it  is  another  to  assume  that  it  has  final 
and  equal  grandeur  in  every  land  and  to  every  State. 
Nor  are  the  endeavours  of  such  writers  as  Man- 
cini  or  Bluntschli  to  trace  the  principle  of  National- 
ity to  the  deepest  impulses  of  man's  life  more 
auspicious.  Not  to  Humanity,  /but  to__  Imperial 
Bome^  must  be  ascribed  the  origin  of  nationality  as 
the  prevailing  form  in  the  State  system  of  modern 
Europe/'/  For  Roman  policy  was,  so  to  speak,  a 
Destiny,  not  merely  to  the  present,  but  to  the  future 
world.  Rome  effaced  the  distinctions,  the  fretting 
discords  of  Celtic  tribes,  and  traced  the  bounds  of 

imply,  the  French  Revolution  of  1789.  It  was  the  bloody 
struggle  of  1642-51  that  made  1688  possible.  The  true  com- 
parison—  if  any  comparison  be  possible  between  revolutions  so 
widely  different  in  their  aims  and  results,  though  following 
each  other  closely  in  the  outward  sequence  of  incident  and 
character  —  would  be  between  the  Puritan  struggle  and  the  first 
revolutionary  period  in  France,  and  between  1688  and  the 
flight  of  James  II,  and  1830  and  the  abdication  of  Charles  X. 
Both  Guizot,  whose  memoirs  of  the  English  Revolution  had 
appeared  in  1826,  and  his  master  Louis  Philippe  intended  that 
France  should  draw  this  comparison  —  the  latter  by  the  title 
"  King  of  the  French  "  adroitly  touching  the  imagination  or 
the  vanity,  whilst  deceiving  the  intelligence,  of  the  nation. 


NATIONALITY  AND  IMPERIALISM      99 

that  Gallia  which  Meerwing  and  Karling,  Capet  and 
Bourbon,  made  it  their  ambition  to  reach,  and  their 
glory  to  maintain.  To  the  cities  of  the  Italian  allies 
Rome  granted  immunities,  privileges,  of  municipal 
independence;  and  from  the  gift,  as  from  a  seed  of 
hate,  grew  the  interminable  strife,  the  petty  wars 
of  the  Middle  Age.  For  this,  Machiavelli,  in  many 
a  bitter  paragraph,  has  execrated  the  Papacy  — 
"  the  stone  thrust  into  the  side  of  Italy  to  keep  the 
wound  open" — but  the  political  creed  of  the  great 
Ghibellines,  Farinata,  or  Dante  himself,  shows  that 
Italian  republicanism,  like  French  nationality,  de- 
rives not  from  papal,  but  from  imperial  Rome. 

The  study  of  Holland,  of  the  history  of  Denmark, 
of  Prussia,  of  Sweden,  of  Scotland,  does  but  illus- 
trate the  observation  that  in  the  principle  of  Nation- 
ality, whether  in  its  origin  or  its  ends,  no  ideal  wide 
as  humanity  is  involved,  nothing  that  is  not  tran- 
sient, local,  or  derived,'  Poetry  and  heroism  have 
in  the  past  clothed  it  with  undying  fame;  but  re- 
cent history,  by  instance  and  by  argument  from  Eu- 
rope and  from  other  continents,  has  proved  that  a 
young  nation  may  be  old  in  corruption,  and  a  small 
State  great  in  oppression,  that  right  is  not  always  on 
the  side  of  weakness,  nor  injustice  with  the  strong. 

Not  for  the  first  time  in  history  are  these  two 
principles,  Nationality  and  Imperialism,  or  princi- 
ples strikingly  analogous,  arrayed  against  each  other *// 
Modern  Europe,  as  we  have  seen,  is  a  complexus  of 
States,  of  which  the  Nation  is  the  constituent  unit. 


ioo         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

Ancient  Hellas  presents  a  similar  complexus  of 
States,  of  which  the  unit  was  not  the  Nation  but 
the  City.  There,  after  the  Persian  Wars,  these  com- 
munities present  a  conflict  of  principles  similar  to 
this  which  now  confronts  us,  a  conflict  between  the 
ideals  of  civic  independence  and  civic  imperialism. 
And  the  conflict  is  attended  by  similar  phenomena, 
covert  hostility,  jealous  execration,  and  finally,  uni- 
versal war.  The  issue  is  known. 

The  defeat  of  Athens  at  Syracuse,  involving  in- 
evitably the  fall  of  her  empire,  was  a  disaster  to 
humanity.  The  spring  of  Athenian  energy  was 
broken,  and  the  one  State  which  Hellas  ever  pro- 
duced capable  at  once  of  government  and  of  a  lofty 
ideal,  intellectual  and  political,  was  a  ruin.  Neither 
Sparta  nor  Macedon  could  take  its  place,  and  after 
the  lingering  degradation  of  two  centuries  Hellas 
succumbs  to  Rome. 

A  disaster  in  South  Africa  would  have  been  just 
such  a  disaster  as  this,  but  on  a  wider  and  more 
terrible  scale. 

For  this  empire  is  built  upon  a  design  more  lib- 
eral even  than  that  of  Athens  or  the  Rome  of  the 
Antonines.  1 1  Britain  conquers,  but  by  the  testimony 
of  men  of  all  races  who  have  found  refuge  within 
her  confines,  she  conquers  less  for  herself  than  for 
humanity.  | ;  "  The  earth  is  Man's"  might  be  her 
watchword,  and,  as  if  she  had  caught  the  Ocean's 
secret,  her  empire  is  the  highway  of  nations.  That 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       101 

province,  that  territory,  that  state  which  is  added  to 
her  sway,  seems  thereby  redeemed  for  humanity 
rather  than  conquered  for  her  own  sons. 

This,  then,  is  the  first  characteristic  of  the  war, 
a  conflict  between  the  two  principles,  the  moribund 
principle  of  Nationality  —  in  the  Transvaal  an  op- 
pressive, an  artificial  nationality  —  and  the  vital 
principle  of  the  future. 

§  3.       THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY 

But  the  war  in  South  Africa  has  a  second  charac- 
teristic not  less  significant.  It  is  the  first  great  war 
waged  by  the  completely  constituted  democracy  of 
1884.  In  the  third  Reform  Bill,  as  we  have  seen, 
the  efforts  of  six  centuries  of  constitutional  history 
find  their  realisation.  The  heroic  action  and  the 
heroic  insight,  the  energy,  the  fortitude,  the  suffer- 
ing, from  the  days  of  Langton  and  de  Mont  fort, 
Bigod  and  Morton,  to  those  of  Canning  and  Peel, 
Russell  and  Bright,  attain  in  this  Act  their  consum- 
mation and  their  end.  The  wars  waged  by  the  un- 
reformed  or  partially  reformed  constituencies  con- 
tiue  in  their  constitutional  character  the  wars  waged 
by  the  Monarchy  or  by  the  Whig  or  Tory  oligar- 
chies of  last  century.  But  in  the  present  conflict 
a  democracy,  at  once  imperial,  self-governing  and 
warlike,  and  actuated  by  the  loftiest  ideals,  con- 
fronts the  world. 

Twice  and  twice  only  in  recorded  history  have 


102         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

these  qualities  appeared  together  and  simultane- 
ously in  one  people,  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles  and 
the  Islam  of  Omar.27 

Revolutionary  France  was  inspired  by  a  dazzling 
dream,  an  exalted  purpose,  but  its  imperialism  was 
the  creation  of  the  genius  or  the  ambition  of  the 
individual;  it  was  not  rooted  in  the  heart  of  the 
race.  It  was  not  Clive  merely  who  gained  India 
for  England.  French  incapacity  for  the  govern- 
ment of  others,  for  empire,  in  a  word,  fought  on 
our  side.  Napoleon  knew  this.  What  a  study  are 

27  I  have  employed  the  phrase  "  Islam  of  Omar  "  throughout 
the  present  work  as  a  means  of  designating  the  period  of 
nine-and-twenty  years  between  the  death  of  Mohammed,  I2th 
Rabi  I.  II  A.  H.,  June  8th,  A.  D.  632,  and  the  assassinition  of 
Ali,  I7th  Hamzan,  40  A.  H.,  January  27th,  A.  D.  661.  Even  in 
the  lifetime  of  Mohammed  the  genius  and  personality  of  Omar 
made  themselves  distinctly  felt.  During  the  caliphate  of  Abu 
Bekr  the  power  of  Omar  was  analogous  to  that  of  Hildebrand 
during  the  two  pontificates  which  immediately  precede  his 
own.  Omar's  is  the  determining  force,  the  will,  and  through- 
out his  own,  and  the  caliphates  of  Osman  and  Ali  which  fol- 
low, that  force  and  that  will  impart  its  distinction  and  its 
direction  to  the  course  of  the  political  life  of  Islam.  The 
nature  and  extent  of  the  sway  of  this  extraordinary  mind 
mark  an  epoch  in  world-history  not  less  memorable  than  the 
Rome  of  Sulla  or  the  Athens  of  Pericles.  From  the  Arab 
historians  a  portrait  that  is  fairly  convincing  can  be  arranged, 
and  the  threat  or  promise  with  which  he  is  said  to  have  an- 
nounced the  purpose  for  which  he  undertook  the  caliphate  is 
consonant  with  the  impression  of  his  appearance  and  manners 
which  tradition  has  preserved — "He  that  is  weakest  among 
you  shall  be,  in  my  sight,  as  the  strongest  until  I  have  made 
good  his  rights  unto  him ;  but  he  that  is  strongest  shall  I  deal 
with  like  the  weakest  until  he  submit  himself  to  the  Law." 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       103 

those  bulletins  of  his!  After  Austerlitz,  after 
Jena,  Eylau,  Friedland,  one  iteration,  assurance  and 
reassurance,  "  This  is  the  last,  the  very  last  cam- 
paign !  "  and  so  on  till  Waterloo.  His  Corsican  in- 
tensity, the  superhuman  power  of  that  mighty  will, 
transformed  the  character  of  the  French  race,  but 
not  forever.  The  Celtic  element  was  too  strong 
for  him,  and  in  the  French  noblesse  he  found  an 
index  to  the  whole  nation.  The  sarcasm,  which  if 
he  did  not  utter  he  certainly  prompted,  has  not  lost 
its  edge  — "  I  showed  them  the  path  to  glory  and 
they  refused  to  tread  it;  I  opened  my  drawing-room 
doors  and  they  rushed  in,  in  crowds."  There  is 
nothing,  more  tragic  in  history  than  the  spectacle 
of  this  man  of  unparalleled  administrative  and 
political  genius,  fettered  by  the  past,  and  at  length 
grown  desperate,  abandoning  himself  to  his  weird. 
The  march  into  Russia  is  the  return  upon  the  dai- 
monic  spirit  of  its  primitive  instincts.  The  benefi- 
cent ruler  is  merged  once  more  in  the  visionary  of 
earlier  times,  dreaming  by  the  Nile,  or  asleep  on  the 
heel  of  a  cannon  on  board  the  Muiron.28  Napoleon 

28  Thwarted  in  his  schemes  of  world-conquest  in  the  East  by 
Nelson  and  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  Bonaparte  returned  to  pursue 
in  Europe  the  same  visionary  but  mighty  designs.  In  Napo- 
leon's career  the  voyage  of  the  Frigate  Muiron  marks  the 
moment  analogous  to  Caesar's  return  from  Gaul,  January,  49 
B.C.  But  Caius  Julius  crossed  the  Rubicon  at  the  head  of 
fifty  thousand  men.  Bonaparte  returned  from  Egypt  alone. 
The  best  soldiers  of  his  staff  indeed  accompanied  him,  Lannes, 
the  "  Roland  "  of  the  battles  of  the  Empire,  Murat,  Bessieres, 
Marmont,  Lavalette,  but  to  a  resolute  government  this  would 


104         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

was  fighting  for  a  dead  ideal  with  the  strength  of 
the  men  who  had  overthrown  that  ideal  —  how 
should  he  prosper?  Conquest  of  England,  Spain, 
Austria,  the  Rhine  frontier,  Holland,  Belgium, 
point  by  point  his  policy  repeats  Bourbon  policy, 
the  policy  that  led  Louis  XVI  to  the  scaffold  and 
himself  to  Ste.  Helene.  Yet  his  first  battles  were 
for  liberty,  and  his  last  made  the  return  of  medi- 
aeval despotism  impossible.  Dying,  he  bequeaths 
imperialism  to  France  as  Euphorion  leaves  his  ves- 
ture in  the  hands  of  Faust  and  Helena.  How  fatal 
was  that  gift  of  a  spurious  imperialism  Metz, 
Sedan,  and  Paris  made  clear  to  all  men. 

The  Rome  of  the  Caesars  presents  successively  a 
veiled  despotism,  a  capricious  military  tyranny,  or 
an  oriental  absolutism.  The  "  Serrar  del  Con- 
siglio  "  made  Venice  and  her  empire  the  paragon  of 
oligarchic  States. 

The  rise  of  the  empire  of  Spain  seems  in  its  na- 
tional enthusiasm  to  offer  a  closer  parallel  to  this 
of  Britain.  But  a  ruthless  fanaticism,  religious 

but  have  blackened  his  desertion  of  Kleber  and  the  army  of 
the  Pyramids.  The  adventure  appears  more  desperate  than 
Caesar's;  but  speculation,  anxiety,  even  hope,  awaited  Napo- 
leon at  Paris.  Moreau  was  no  Pompey.  The  sequence  of 
dates  is  interesting.  On  the  night  of  August  22nd,  1799, 
Bonaparte  went  on  board  the  frigate ;  five  weeks  later,  having 
just  missed  Nelson,  he  reached  Ajaccio;  on  October  gth  he 
lands  at  Frejus,  on  the  i6th  he  is  at  Paris,  and  resumes  his 
residence  in  rue  de  la  Victoire.  Three  weeks  later,  on  Novem- 
ber Qth,  occurs  the  incident  known  to  history  as  i8th  Bru- 
maire. 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       105 

and  political,  stains  from  the  outset  the  devotion 
of  the  Spanish  people  to  their  Hapsburg  monarchs. 
Spain  fought  with  grandeur,  heroism,  and  with 
chivalrous  resolution ;  but  her  dark  purpose,  the  sup- 
pression throughout  Europe  of  freedom  of  the  soul, 
made  her  valour  frustrate  and  her  devotion  vain. 
She  warred  against  the  light,  and  the  enemies  of 
Spain  were  the  friends  of  humanity,  the  benefactors 
of  races  and  generations  unborn.  What  criterion 
of  truth,  what  principle  even  of  party  politics,  can 
then  incite  a  statesman  and  an  historian  to  assert 
and  to  re-assert  that  in  our  war  in  South  Africa  we 
are  acting  as  the  Spanish  acted  against  the  ances- 
tors of  the  Dutch,  and  that  our  fate  and  our  retri- 
bution will  be  as  the  fate  and  the  retribution  of 
Spain?  England's  ideal  is  not  the  ideal  of  Spain, 
nor  are  her  methods  the  methods  of  Spain.  The 
war  in  Africa  —  is  it  then  a  war  waged  for  the  de- 
struction of  religious  freedom  throughout  the 
world,  or  will  the  triumph  of  England  establish  the 
Inquisition  in  Pretoria  ?  But,  it  is  urged,  "  the 
Dutch  have  never  been  conquered,  they  are  of  the 
same  stubborn,  unyielding  stock  as  our -own."  In 
the  sense  that  they  are  Teutons,  the  Dutch  are  of 
the  same  stock  as  the  English;  but  the  characteris- 
tics of  the  Batavian  are  not  those  of  the  Jute,  the 
Viking,  and  the  Norseman.  The  best  blood  of  the 
Teutonic  race  for  six  centuries  went  to  the  making 
of  England.  At  the  period  when  the  Batavians 
were  the  contented  dependents  of  Burgundy  or 


106         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

Flanders,  the  English  nation  was*  being  schooled  by 
struggle  and  by  suffering  for  the  empire  of  the  fu- 
ture. As  for  the  former  clause  of  the  assertion,  it 
is  accurate  of  no  race,  no  nation.  The  history  of 
the  United  Provinces  does  not  close  with  John  de 
Witt  and  William  III.  Can  those  critics  of  the  war 
who  still  point  to  William  the  Silent,  and  to  the 
broken  dykes,  and  to  Leyden,  have  reviewed,  even 
in  Schlosser,  the  history  of  Holland  in  the  eight- 
eenth century,  the  part  of  the  Dutch  in  Frederick's 
wars,  the  turpitudes  of  the  Peace  of  1783,  un- 
equalled in  modern  history,  and  in  world-history 
never  surpassed,  or  of  the  surrender  of  Namur  to 
Joseph  II,  or  of  the  braggadocio  patriotism  which 
that  monarch  tested  by  sending  his  ship  down  the 
Scheldt,  or  of  the  capitulation  of  Amsterdam  to 
Brunswick  ? 

The  heroic  period  of  the  United  Provinces  in 
action,  art,  and  literature  began  and  ended  in  the 
deep-hearted  resolution  of  the  race  to  perish  rather 
than  forego  the  right  to  worship  God  in  their  own 
way.  In  the  history  of  this  State,  from  Philip  II 
to  Louis  XIV,  religious  oppression  seems  to  play  a 
part  almost  like  that  of  individual  genius  in  Mace- 
don  or  in  modern  France.  When  that  force  is 
withdrawn,  there  is  an  end  to  the  greatness  of  Hol- 
land, as  when  a  Charlemagne,  an  Alexander,  or  a 
Napoleon  dies,  the  greatness  of  their  empires  dies 
also.  In  the  passion  for  political  greatness  as  such, 
the  Dutch  have  never  found  the  spur,  the  incitement 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       107 

to  heroic  action  or  to  heroic  self-renunciation  which 
religion  for  a  time  supplied. 

From  false  judgments  false  deeds  follow,  else  it 
were  but  harsh  ingratitude  to  recall,  or  even  to  re- 
member, the  decay,  the  humiliations  of  the  land 
within  whose  borders  Rembrandt  and  Spinoza,  Von- 
del  and  Grotius,  Cornelius  and  John  de  Witt  lived, 
worked,  and  suffered. 

But  in  the  empire  which  fell  at  Syracuse  we  en- 
counter resemblances  to  the  democratic  Empire  of 
Britain,  deeper  and  more  organic,  and  of  an  im- 
pressive and  even  tragic  significance.  For  though 
the  stage  on  which  Athens  acts  her  part  is  narrower, 
the  idea  which  informs  the  action  is  not  less  ele- 
vated and  serene.  A  purpose  yet  more  exultant,  a 
hope  as  living,  and  an  impulse  yet  more  mystic  and 
transcendent,  sweeps  the  warriors  of  Islam  beyond 
the  Euphrates  eastward  to  the  Indus,  then  through 
Syria,  beyond  the  Nile  to  Carthage  and  the  Western 
Sea,  tracing  within  the  quarter  of  a  century  domi- 
nated by  the  genius  of  Omar  the  bounds  of  an  em- 
pire which  Rome  scarce  attains  in  two  hundred 
years.  But  this  empire-republic,  the  Islam  of  Omar, 
passes  swifter  than  a  dream;  the  tyranny  and  the 
crimes  of  the  palaces  of  Damascus  and  Bagdad 
succeed. 

And  now  after  twelve  centuries  a  democratic 
Empire,  raised  up  and  exalted  for  ends  as  mystic 
and  sublime  as  those  of  Athens  and  the  Islam  of 
Omar,  appears  upon  the  world-stage,  and  the  ques- 


io8         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

tion  of  questions  to  every  student  of  speculative 
politics  at  the  present  hour  is  —  Whither  will  this 
portent  direct  its  energies?  Will  it  press  onward 
towards  some  yet  mightier  endeavour,  or,  mastered 
by  some  hereditary  taint,  sink  torpid  and  neglectful, 
leaving  its  vast,  its  practically  inexhaustible  forces 
to  waste  unused? 

The  deeds  on  the  battlefield,  the  spirit  which  fires 
the  men  from  every  region  of  that  empire  and  from 
every  section  of  that  society  of  nations,  the  attitude 
which  has  marked  that  people  and  that  race  towards 
the  present  war,  are  not  without  deep  significance. 
Now  at  last  the  name  English  People  is  co-extensive 
and  of  equal  meaning  with  the  English  race.  The 
distinctions  of  rank,  of  intellectual  or  social  en- 
vironment, of  birth,  of  political  or  religious  creeds, 
professions,  are  all  in  that  great  act  forgotten  and 
are  as  if  they  were  not.  Rivals  in  valour,  emulous 
in  self-renunciation,  contending  for  the  place  of 
danger,  hardship,  trial,  they  seem  as  if  every  man 
felt  within  his  heart  the  emotion  of  ^Eschines  see- 
ing the  glory  of  Macedon  — "  Our  life  scarce  seemed 
that  of  mortals,  nor  the  achievements  of  our 
time."  Contemplating  this  spectacle,  this  Empire 
thrilled  throughout  its  vast  bulk,  from  bound  to 
bound  of  its  far-stretched  greatness,  with  one  hope, 
one  energy,  one  aspiration  and  one  fear,  one  sorrow 
and  one  joy,  is  not  this  some  warrant,  is  not  this 
some  presage  of  the  future,  and  of  the  course  which 
this  people  will  pursue? 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       109 

Let  us  pause  here  for  a  moment  upon  the  trans- 
formation which  this  word  English  People  has 
undergone.  When  Froissart,  for  instance,  in  the 
fourteenth  century,  speaks  of  the  English  People, 
he  sees  before  him  the  chivalrous  nobles  of  the  type 
of  Chandos  or  Talbot,  the  Black  Prince  or  de 
Bohun.  The  work  of  the  archers  at  Crecy  and 
Poitiers  extended  the  term  to  English  yeomen,  and 
with  the  rise  of  towns  and  the  spread  of  maritime 
adventure  the  merchant  and  the  trader  are  included 
under  the  same  great  designation  as  feudal  knight 
and  baron. 

Puritanism  and  the  Civil  Wars  widened  the  term 
still  further,  but  as  late  as  the  time  of  Chatham  its 
general  use  is  restricted  to  the  ranks  which  it  cov- 
ered in  the  sixteenth  century.  Thus  when  Chatham 
or  Burke  speaks  of  the  English  People,  it  is  the 
merchants  of  a  town  like  Bristol,  as  opposed  to  the 
English  nobles,  that  he  has  in  view.  And  Welling- 
ton declared  that  Eton  and  Harrow  bred  the  spirit 
which  overcame  Napoleon,  which  stormed  Bada- 
joz,  and  led  the  charge  at  Waterloo.  The  Duke's 
hostility  to  Reform,  his  reluctance  to  extend  the 
term,  with  its  responsibilities  and  its  privileges,  its 
burdens  and  its  glory,  to  the  whole  race,  is  intel- 
ligible enough.  But  in  this  point  the  admirers  of 
the  Duke  wefe  wiser  or  more  reckless  than  their 
hero,  and  the  followers  of  Pitt  than  the  followers 
of  Chatham.  The  hazard  of  enfranchising  the  mil- 
lions, of  extending  the  word  People  to  include  every 


no         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

man  of  British  blood,  was  a  great,  a  breathless  haz- 
ard. Might  not  a  mob  arise  like  that  which  gath- 
ered round  the  Jacobins,  or  by  their  fury  and  their 
rage  added  another  horror  to  the  horror  of  the  vic- 
tim on  the  tumbril,  making  the  guillotine  a  welcome 
release  ? 

But  the  hazard  has  been  made,  the  enfranchise- 
ment is  complete,  and  it  is  a  winning  hazard.  To 
Eton  and  Harrow,  as  nurseries  of  valour,  the  Duke 
would  now  require  to  add  every  national,  every  vil- 
lage school,  from  Bethnal  Green  to  Ballycroy! 
Populus  Anglicanus  —  it  has  risen  in  its  might,  and 
sent  forth  its  sons,  and  not  a  man  of  them  but 
seems  on  fire  to  rival  the  gallantry,  the  renunciation 
of  Chandos  and  Talbot,  of  Sidney  and  Wolfe.  Has 
not  the  present  war  given  a  harvest  of  instances? 
The  soldier  after  Spion  Kop,  his  jaw  torn  off,  death 
threatening  him,  signs  for  paper  and  pencil  to  write, 
not  a  farewell  message  to  wife  or  kin,  but  Wolfe's 
question  on  the  Plains  of  Abraham  — "  Have  we 
won?"  Another,  his  side  raked  by  a  hideous 
wound,  dying,  breathes  out  the  undying  resolution 
of  his  heart,  "  Roll  me  aside,  men,  and  go  on !  " 
Nor  less  heroic  that  sergeant,  ambushed  and  sum- 
moned at  great  odds  to  surrender.  "  Never!  "  was 
the  brief  imperative  response,  and  made  tranquil  by 
that  word  and  that  defiance,  shot  through  the  heart, 
he  falls  dead.  This  is  the  spirit  of  the  ranks,  this 
the  bearing  in  death,  this  the  faith  in  England's 
ideal  of  the  enfranchised  masses. 


THE  WAR  OF  A  DEMOCRACY       in 

Nor  has  the  spirit  of  Eton  and  Harrow  abated. 
Neither  the  Peninsular  nor  the  Marlborough  wars, 
conspicuous  by  their  examples  of  daring,  exhibit 
anything  that  within  a  brief  space  quite  equals  the 
self -immolating  valour  displayed  in  the  disastrous 
openings  of  this  war  by  those  youths,  the  gens  Fabia 
of  modern  days,  prodigal  of  their  blood,  rushing 
into  the  Mauser  hailstorm,  as  if  in  jest  each  man 
had  sworn  to  make  the  sterile  veldt  blossom  like 
the  rose,  fertilising  it  with  the  rich  drops  of  his 
heart,  since  the  rain  is  powerless ! 

§  4.      COSMOPOLITANISM   AND  JINGOISM 

Nor  is  this  heroism,  and  the  devotion  which  in- 
spires* it,  shut  within  the  tented  field  or  confined 
to  the  battle-line.  The  eyes  of  the  race  are  upon 
that  drama,  and  the  heart  of  the  race  beats  within 
the  breasts  of  the  actors.  There  is  something 
Roman  in  the  nation's  unmoved  purpose,  the  con- 
centration of  its  whole  force  upon  one  fixed  mark, 
disregarding  the  judgment  of  men,  realising,  how- 
ever bitter  the  wisdom,  that  the  Empire  which  the 
sword  and  the  death-defiant  valour  of  the  past  have 
upraised  can  be  maintained  only  by  the  sword  and 
a  valour  not  less  death-defiant,  a  self-renunciation 
not  less  heroic. 

Such  manifestations  of  heroism  and  of  a  zeal- 
ous ardour,  unexampled  in  its  extent  and  its  in- 
tensity, offer  assuredly,  I  repeat,  some  augury, 
some  earnest  of  that  which*  is  to  come,  some  pledge 


ii2         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

to  the  new  century  rising  like  a  planet  tremulous 
on  the  horizon's  verge. 

But  a  widespread  error  still  confounds  this  im- 
perial patriotism  with  Cosmopolitanism,  this  resolu- 
tion of  a  great  people  with  Jingoism.  Now  what 
is  Cosmopolitanism?  It  is  an  attitude  of  mind 
purely  negative;  it  is  a  characteristic  of  protected 
nationalities,  and  of  decayed  races.  It  passes  easily 
into  political  indifference,  political  apathy.  It  is  the 
negation  of  patriotism ;  but  it  offers  no  constructive 
ideal  in  its  stead.  Imperialism  is  active,  it  is  con- 
structive.29 It  is  the  passion  of  Marathon  and  Traf- 
algar, it  is  the  patriotism  of  a  de  Montfort  or  a 
Grenville,  at  once  intensified  and  heightened  by  the 
aspirations  of  humanity,  by  the  ideals  of  a  Shelley, 
a  Wilberforce,  or  a  Canning.  But  between  mere 
war-fever,  Jingoism,  and  such  free,  unfettered  en- 
thusiasm, a  nation's  unaltering  loyalty  in  defeat  or 
in  triumph  to  an  ideal  born  of  its  past,  and  its  joy 
in  the  actions  in  which  this  ideal  is  realised,  the  gulf 
is  wide.  Napoleon  knew  this.  Nothing  in  history 
is  more  illuminating  than  the  bitter  remark  with 
which  he  turned  away  from  the  sight  of  the  en- 
thusiasm with  which  Vienna  welcomed  its  defeated 

29  The  Empire  of  Rome,  of  Alexander,  of  Britain,  is  not  even 
the  antagonist  of  what  is  essential  in  Cosmopolitanism.  Rome, 
Hellas,  Britain  possess  by  God  or  Fate  the  power  to  govern 
to  a  more  excellent  degree  than  other  States  —  Imperialism  is 
the  realisation  of  this  power.  Cosmopolitanism's  laissez-faire 
is  anarchism  or  it  is  the  betrayal  of  humanity. 


COSMOPOLITANISM  AND  JINGOISM      113 

sovereign,  Francis  II.     All  his  victories  could  not 
purchase  him  that! 

Would  the  critics  of  "  music-hall  madness  "  pre- 
fer to  see  a  city  stand  sullen,  silent,  indifferent, 
cursing  in  the  bitterness  of  its  heart  the  government, 
the  army,  the  empire?  Or  would  they  have  it  like 
the  Roman  mob  of  the  first  Caesars,  cluster  in 
crowds,  careless  of  empire,  battles,  or  the  glory  of 
Rome's  name,  shouting  for  a  loaf  of  bread  and  a 
circus  ticket?  Between  the  cries,  the  laughter,  the 
tears  of  a  mob  and  the  speech  or  the  silence  of  a 
statesman  there  is  a  great  space;  but  it  were  rash 
to  assume  that  the  dissonant  clamour  of  the  crowds 
is  but  an  ignorant  or  a  transient  frenzy.  In  reli- 
gion itself  have  we  not  similar  variety  of  expres- 
sion? Those  faces  gathered  under  the  trees  or  in 
a  public  thoroughfare  —  the  expression  of  emotion 
there  is  not  that  which  we  witness,  say,  in  Santa 
Croce,  at  prime,  when  the  first  light  falls  through 
the  windows  on  Giotto's  frescoes,  Herod  and  Fran- 
cis, St.  Louis  and  the  Soldan,  and  on  the  few,  the 
still  worshippers  —  but  dare  we  assert  that  this 
alone  is  sincere,  the  other  unfelt  because  loud? 

§  5.       MILITARISM 

And  yet  beneath  this  joy,  the  tumultuous  joy  of 
this  hour  of  respite  from  a  hope  that  in  the  end 
became  harder  to  endure  than  despair,  there  is  per- 
haps not  a  single  heart  in  this  Empire  which  does 
not  at  moments  start  as  at  some  menacing,  some 


ii4         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

sinister  sound,  a  foreboding  of  evil  which  it  endeav- 
ours to  shake  off  but  cannot,  for  it  returns,  louder 
and  more  insistent,  tyrannously  demanding  the  at- 
tention of  the  most  reluctant.  Once  more  on  this 
old  earth  of  ours  is  witnessed  the  spectacle  of  a 
vast  people  stirred  by  one  ideal,  impulse  prepared 
for  all  sacrifices  for  that  ideal  prepared  to  face  war, 
and  the  outcry  of  a  misunderstanding  or  envious 
antagonism.  Whither  is  this  impulse  to  be  di- 
rected ?  What  minister  or  parliament  is  to  dare  the 
responsibility  of  turning  this  movement,  this  great 
and  spontaneous  movement,  to  this  people's  salva- 
tion, to  this  Empire's  high  purposes?  How  shall 
its  bounds  be  made  secure  against  encroachment,  its 
own  shores  from  coalesced  foes? 

Let  me  approach  this  matter  from  the  standpoint 
of  history,  the  sole  standpoint  from  which  I  have 
the  right  —  to  use  a  current  phrase  —  to  speak  as 
an  expert.  First  of  all  let  me  say,  that  an  axiom 
or  maxim  which  appears  to  guide  the  utterances  if 
not  the  actions  of  statesmen,  the  maxim  that  the 
British  people  will  under  no  circumstances  tolerate 
any  form  of  compulsory  service  for  war,  is  unjusti- 
fied by  history.  It  has  no  foundation  in  history  at 
all.  Nothing  in  the  past  justifies  the  ascription  of 
such  a  limit  to  the  devotion  of  this  people.  Of  an 
ancient  lineage,  but  young  in  empire,  proud,  loving 
freedom,  not  disdainful  of  glory,  perfectly  fearless 
—  who  shall  assign  bounds  to  its  devotion  or  de- 
termine the  limts  of  its  endurance?  I  go  further,  I 


MILITARISM  115 

affirm  that  the  records  of  the  past,  the  heroic  sacri- 
fices which  England  made  in  the  sixteenth,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  and  in  later  times,  justify  the 
contrary  assumption,  justify  the  assumption  that  at 
this  crisis  —  this  grave  and  momentous  crisis,  a 
crisis  such  as  I  think  no  council  of  men  has  had  to 
face  for  many  centuries,  perhaps  not  since  the  em- 
bassy of  the  Goths  to  the  Emperor  Valens  —  the 
ministry  or  cabinet  which  but  dares,  dares  to  trust 
this  people's  resolution,  will  find  that  thisc  enthusi- 
asm iff  pot  that  nf  men  overwrought  with  war-fever. 
but  the  Heep-se.ateH  pnrposf  pf 


thp  heritage  L  nf  its  father,*,  and  not  to  swerve 
from  the  path  which  fate  itself  has  marked  out  for 
it  amongst  the  empires  of  the  earth.  This,  I  main- 
tain, is  the  verdict  of  history  upon  the  matter. 

There  is  a  second  prominent  argument  against 
compulsory  service,  an  argument  drawn  by  analogy 
from  the  circumstances  of  other  nations.  Men 
point  to  Rennes,  to  the  petty  tyrannies  of  military 
upstarts  over  civilians  in  Germany,  and  cry,  "  Be- 
hold what  awaits  you  from  conscription  !  "  Such 
arguments  have  precisely  the  same  value  as  the  ar- 
guments against  Parliamentary  Reform  fifty  years 
ago,  based  on  the  terror  of  Jacobinism.  We  might 
as  well  condemn  all  free  institutions  because  of 
Tammany  Hall,  as  condemn  compulsory  service  be- 
cause of  its  abuses  in  other  countries.  And  an  ap- 
peal to  the  Pretorians  of  Rome  or  to  the  Janizaries 
of  the  Ottoman  empire  would  be  as  relevant  as  an 


n6         THE  WAR  IN  SOUTH  AFRICA 

appeal  for  warning  to  the  major-generals  of  Oliver 
Cromwell.  Nor  is  there  any  fixed  and  necessary 
hostility  between  militarism  and  art,  between  mili- 
tarism and  culture,  as  the  Athens  of  Plato  and  of 
Sophocles,  a  military  State,  attests. 

All  institutions  are  transfigured  by  the  ideal 
which  calls  them  into  being.  And  this  ideal  of  Im- 
perial Britain  —  to  bring  to  the  peoples  of  the  earth 
beneath  her  sway  the  larger  freedom  and  the  higher 
justice  —  the  world  has  known  none  fairer,  none 
more  exalted,  since  that  for  which  Godfrey  and 
Richard  fought,  for  which  Barbarossa  and  St. 
Louis  died.  There  is  nothing  in  our  annals  which 
warrants  evil  presage  from  the  spread  of  militarism, 
nothing  which  precludes  the  hope,  the  just  confi- 
dence that  our  very  blood  and  the  ineffaceable  char- 
acter of  our  race  will  save  us  from  any  mischief 
that  militarism  may  have  brought  to  others,  and 
that  in  the  future  another  chivalry  may  arise  which 
shall  be  to  other  armies  and  other  systems  what 
the  Imperial  Parliament  is  to  the  parliaments  of 
the  world  —  a  paragon  and  an  example. 

With  us  the  decision  rests.  If  we  should  decide 
wrongly  —  it  is  not  the  loss  of  prestige,  it  is  not  the 
narrowed  bounds  we  have  to  fear,  it  is  the  judgment 
of  the  dead,  the  despair  of  the  living,  of  the  inarti- 
culate myriads  who  have  trusted  to  us,  it  is  the  ar- 
raigning eyes  of  the  unborn.  Who  can  confront 
this  unappalled? 


CHAPTER  V 

WHAT   IS    WAR? 

ASSUMING  then  that  the  imperialistic  is  the  supreme 
form  in  the  political  development  of  the  national 
as  of  the  civic  State,  and  that  to  the  empires  of  the 
world  belongs  the  government  of  the  world  in  the 
future,  and  that  in  Britain  a  mode  of  imperialism 
which  may  be  described  as  democratic  displays  it- 
self —  a  mode  which  in  human  history  is  rarely 
encountered,  and  never  save  at  crises  and  fraught 
with  consequences  memorable  to  all  time  —  the 
problem  meets  us,  will  this  form  of  government 
make  for  peace  or  for  war,  considering  peace  and 
war  not  as  mutual  contradictories  but  as  alterna- 
tives  in  the  life  of  a  State?  Even  a  partial  solution 
of  this  problem  requires  a  consideration  of  the 
question  "What  is  War?" 

§  I.       THE    PLACE    OF    WAR   IN    WORLD-HISTORY 

The  question  "What  is  War?"  has  been  vari- 
ously answered,  according  as  the  aim  of  the  writer 
is  to  illustrate  its  methods  historically,  or  from  the 
operations  of  the  wars  of  the  past  to  deduce  pre- 
cepts for  the  tactics  or  the  strategy  of  the  present, 

117 


ii8  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

or  as  in  the  writings  of  Aristotle  and  Grotius,  of 
Montesquieu  and  Bluntschli,  to  assign  the  limits 
of  its  fury,  or  fix  the  basis  of  its  ethics,  its  distinc- 
tion as  just  or  unjust.  But  another  aspect  of  the 
question  concerns  us  here  —  What  is  War  in  itself 
and  by  itself?  And  what  is  its  place  in  the  life- 
history  of  a  State  considered  as  an  entity,  an  organic 
unity,  distinct  from  the  unities  which  compose  it? 
Is  war  a  fixed  or  a  transient  condition  of  the  po- 
litical life  of  man,  and  if  permanent,  does  its  relation 
to  the  world- force  admit  of  description  and  defini- 
tion? 

If  we  were  to  adopt  the  method  by  which  Aris- 
totle endeavoured  to  arrive  at  a  correct  conception 
of  the  nature  of  a  State,  and  review  the  part  which 
war  has  played  in  world-history,  and,  disregarding 
the  mechanical  enumeration  of  causes  and  effects, 
if  we  were  to  examine  the  motives,  impulses,  or 
ideals  embodied  in  the  great  conflicts  of  world-his- 
tory, the  question  whether  war  be  a  necessary  evil, 
an  infliction  to  which  humanity  must  resign  itself, 
would  be  seen  to  emerge  in  another  shape - 
whether  war  be  an  evil  at  all;  whether  in  the  life- 
history  of  a  State  it  be  not  an  attestation  of  the 
self-devotion  of  that  State  to  the  supreme  end  of  its 
being,  even  of  its  power  of  consecration  to  the  High- 
est Good? 

Every  great  war  known  to  history  resolves  itself 
ultimately  into  the  conflict  of  two  ideals.  The  Cav- 
alier fights  in  triumph  or  defeat  in  a  cause  not  less 


WAR  IN  WORLD-HISTORY          119 

exalted  than  that  of  the  Puritan,  and  Salamis  ac- 
quires a  pro  founder  significance  when  considered, 
not  from  the  standpoint  of  Athens  and  Themis- 
tocles  merely,  but  from  the  camp  of  Xerxes,  and  the 
ruins  of  the  mighty  designs  of  Cyrus  and  Hystaspes, 
an  incident  which  Aeschylus  found  tragic  enough 
to  form  a  theme  for  one  of  his  loftiest  trilogies.30 
The  wars  a-gainst  Pisa  and  Venice  light  with  inter- 
mittent gleams  the  else  sordid  annals  of  Genoa;  and 
through  the  grandeur  and  ferocity  of  a  century  of 
war  Rome  moves  to  world-empire,  and  Carthage 
to  a  death  which  throws  a  lustre  over  her  history, 
making  its  least  details  memorable,  investing  its 
merchants  with  an  interest  beyond  that  of  princes, 
and  bequeathing  to  mankind  the  names  of  Hamilcar 
and  Hannibal  as  a  strong  argument  of  man's  great- 
ness if  all  other  records  were  to  perish.  Qui  habet 
tcrram  habet  bellum  is  but  a  half-truth.  IjNo  war 
was  ever  waged  for  material  ends  only.  Territory 
is  a  trophy  of  battle,  but  the  origin  of  war  is  rooted 
in  the  character,  the  political  genius,  -the  imagina- 

30  The  sea  and  the  invincible  might  of  Athens  on  the  waves 
formed  the  connecting  ideas  of  the  three  dramas,  Phineus, 
Persa,  Glaucus.  The  trilogy  was  produced  in  473  or  472  B.  c., 
whilst  the  memory  of  Salamis  was  still  fresh  in  every  heart. 
The  Phcenissa,  the  "Women  of  Sidon,"  a  tragedy  on  the 
same  theme  by  Phrynichus,  had  been  acted  five  years  earlier. 
The  distinction  of  these  works  lay  in  the  presentation  to  the 
conquering  State  of  a  great  victory  as  a  tragedy  in  the  life  of 
the  vanquished.  The  cry  in  the  Persa,  "  &iratdes  'EXX^pwv  tfre," 
still  echoes  with  singular  fidelity  across  3,000  years  in  the  war- 
song  of  modern  Greece :  "  Aeure  waides  rov  ' 


120  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

tion  of  the  race.  One  of  the  profoundest  of  mod- 
ern investigators  in  mediaeval  history,  Dr.  Georg 
Waitz,  insists  on  the  attachment  of  the  Teutonic 
kindred  to  the  soil,  and  on  the  measures  by  which  in 
the  primitive  constitutions  the  war-instinct  was 
checked.31  The  observation  of  Waitz  is  just,  but  a 
change  in  environment  develops  the  latent  qualities 
of  a  race.  The  restless  and  melancholy  surge,  the 
wide  and  desolate  expanse  of  the  North  Sea  ex- 
alted the  imagination  of  the  Viking  as  the  desert 
the  imagination  of  the  Arab.  Not  the  cry  of 
"  New  lands  "  merely,  but  the  adventurous  heart  of 
his  race,  lured  on  by  the  magic  of  the  sea,  its  reced- 
ing horizons,  its  danger  and  its  change,  spread  the 
fame  and  the  terror  of  the  Norsemen  from  the 
basilicas,  the  marbles,  and  the  thronging  palaces  of 
Byzantium  to  the  solitary  homestead  set  in  the  Eng- 
lish forest-clearing,  or  in  the  wastes  of  Ireland 
which  the  zeal  of  her  monasteries  was  slowly  re- 
claiming. To  the  glamour  of  war  for  its  own  sake 

31  Thus  in  speaking  of  the  ancient  life  of  the  Teutonic  peo- 
ples: "Doch  alles  das  (Neigung  zum  Kampf  mit  den  Nach- 
barn  und  zu  kriegerischen  Ziigen  in  die  Feme)  hat  nicht 
gehindert,  dass,  wo  die  Deutschen  sich  niederliessen,  alsbald 
bestimmte  Ordnungen  des  offentlichen  und  rechtlichen  Lebens 
begrundet  wurden." — Verfassungsgcschichte,  3rd  ed.,  i,  p.  19; 
cf.  also  i,  pp.  416-17 :  "  Es  hat  nicht  eigene  Kriegsvolker 
gegeben,  gebildet  durch  und  fur  den  Krieg,  nicht  Kriegs- 
staaten  in  solchem  Sinn,  dass  alles  ganz  und  allein  fur  den 
Krieg  berechnet  gewesen  ware,  nicht  einmal  auf  die  Dauer 
Kriegsfiirsten,  deren  Herrschaft  nur  in  Kriegfiihrung  und 
Heeresmacht  ihren  Grund  gehabt." 


WAR  IN  WORLD-HISTORY          121 

the  Crusades  brought  the  transforming  power  of  a 
new  ideal.  The  cry  " Deus  milt!"  at  Clermont 
marks  for  the  whole  Teutonic  race  the  final  transi- 
tion from  the  type  of  Alaric  and  Chlodovech,  of 
Cerdic  and  Hrolf,  to  that  of  Godfrey  and  Tancred, 
Richard  Lion-heart  and  Saint  Louis,  from  the  sagas 
and  the  war-songs  of  the  northern  skalds  to  the 
chivalrous  verse  of  the  troubadours,  a  Bertrand  or 
a  Rudel,  to  the  epic  narrative  of  the  crusades  which 
transfigures  at  moments  the  prose  of  William  of 
Tyre  or  of  Orderic,  of  Geoffrey  de  Vinsauf  or  of 

Joinville.  TSfTiin^rir?-) 

>The  wide  acceptance  of  the  territorial  theory  of 
the  origin  of  war  as  an  explanation  of  war,  and  the 
enumeration  by  historians  of  causes  and  results  in 
territory  or  taxation,  can  be  ascribed  only  to  that 
indolence  oj:  thie  Jiuman  mind,  the  subtle  inertia  y 
which,  as  Tacitus  affirms,  lies  in  wait  to  mar  all 
high  endeavour  — "  Subit  quippe  etiam  ipsius  iner- 
tise  dulcedo,  et  invisa  primo  desidia  postremo 
amatur." 

The  wars  of  the  Hebrews,  if  territorial  in  their 
apparent  origin,  reveal  in  their  course  their  true 
origin  in  the  heart  of  the  race,  the  consciousness  of 
the  high  destiny  reserved  for  it  amongst  the  Semitic 
kindred,  amongst  the  nations  of  the  earth.  If  ever 
there  were  a  race  which  seemed  destined  to  found 
a  world-empire  by  the  sword  it  is  the  Hebrew.  They 
make  war  with  Roman  relentlessness  and  with 
more  than  Roman  ideality,  the  Lord  God  of  Hosts 


122  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

guiding  their  march  or  their  retreat  by  day  and  by 
night  ceaselessly.  Every  battle  is  a  Lake  Regillus, 
and  for  the  great  Twin  Brethren  it  is  Jehovah 
Sabaoth  that  nerves  the  right  arm  of  his  faithful. 
The  forms  of  Gideon  and  Joshua,  though  on  a  nar- 
rower stage,  have  a  place  with  those  other  captains 
of  their  race  —  Hannibal,  Bar-Cochab,  Khalid, 
Amr,  Saad,32  and  Mothanna.  The  very  spirit  of 
war  seems  to  shape  their  poetry  from  the  first  chant 
for  the  defeat  of  Egypt  to  that  last  song  of  con- 
stancy in  overthrow,  of  unconquerable  resolve  and 

32  The  lapse  of  ages,  enthusiasm,  or  carelessness,  tribal  jeal- 
ousies or  the  accidental  predilections  of  an  individual  poet  or 
historian,  combine  to  render  the  early  history  of  the  Arabs, 
so  far  as  precision  in  dates,  the  definite  order  and  mutual 
relations  of  events,  characters,  and  localities  are  concerned, 
perplexing  and  insecure,  or  tantalising  by  the  wealth  of  de- 
tail, impressive  indeed,  but  eluding  the  test  of  historical  criti- 
cism. Their  tactics  and  the  composition  of  their  armies  make 
the  precise  share  of  this  or  that  general  in  determining  the 
result  of  a  battle  or  a  campaign  difficult  to  estimate.  Yet  by 
the  concord  of  authorities  the  glory  of  the  overthrow  of  the 
Empire  of  the  Sassanides  seems  to  be  the  portion,  first  of  Mot- 
hanna, who  sustained  the  fortunes  of  Islam  at  a  most  critical 
hour,  A.  H.  13-14,  and  by  his  victory  at  Boawib  just  warded 
off  a  great  disaster ;  and  secondly  of  Saad,  the  victor  of  Kade- 
sia,  A.  H.  15  A.  D.  636-7,  the  conqueror  and  first  administrator 
of  Irak.  The  claims  of  Amr,  or  Amrou,  to  the  conquest  of 
Egypt,  Pelusium,  Memphis,  Alexandria,  A.  D.  638,  admit  of 
hardly  a  doubt ;  whilst  the  distinction  of  Khalid,  "  the  Sword 
of  God,"  in  the  Syrian  War  at  the  storming  of  Damascus 
and  in  the  crushing  defeat  of  Heraclius  at  the  Yermuk,  Au- 
gust, A.  D.  634,  may  justly  entitle  him  to  the  designation  —  if 
that  description  can  be  applied  to  any  one  of  the  devoted  band 
—  of  "Conqueror  of  Sy&a." 


WAR  IN  WORLD-HISTORY          123 

sure  vengeance,  a  march  music  befitting  Judas  Mac- 
cabaeus  and  his  men,  beside  which  all  other  war- 
songs,  even  the  "  Marseillaise,"  appear  of  no  ac- 
count—  the  Al  Naharoth  Babel — "Let  my  sword- 
hand  forget,  if  I  forget  thee,  O  Jerusalem" — pass- 
ing from  the  mood  of  pity  through  words  that  are 
like  the  flash  of  spears  to  a  rapture  of  revenge 
known  only  to  the  injured  spirits  of  the  great  when 
baulked  of  their  God-appointed  fate.  Yet  on  the 
shores  of  the  Western  Sea  the  career  of  this  race 
abruptly  ends,  as  if  in  Palestine  they  found  a  Capua, 
as  the  Crusaders  long  afterwards,  Templars  and 
Hospitallers,  found  in  that  languid  air,  the  Syrian 
clime,  a  Capua.  Thus  the  Hebrews  missed  the 
world-empire  which  the  Arabs  gained,  but  even  out 
of  their  despair  created  another  empire,  thej^rnpjre 
Qfjthought;  and  the  power  to  found  this  empire, 
whether  expressed  in  the  character  of  their  warriors, 
or  in  that  unparalleled  conviction  which  marks  the 
Hebrew  in  the  remotest  lands  and  most  distant  cen- 
turies, the  certainty  of  his  return,  the  refusal,  un- 
yielding, to  believe  that  he  has  missed  the  great 
meed  which,  there  in  Palestine,  there  in  the  Capua  of 
his  race,  seemed  within  his  grasp,  but  attests  further 
that  it  is  in  no  lust  for  territory  that  these  wars 
originate. 

In  the  historical  and  speculative  literature  of 
Hellas  and  Rome  war  occupies  a  position  essen- 
tially identical  with  that  which  it  occupies  in  the 
Hebrew.  It  is  the  assertion  of  right  by  violence, 


124  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

or  it  is  the  pursuit  of  a  fate-appointed  end.  Aris- 
totle, with  his  inveterate  habit  of  subjecting  all 
things  —  art,  statesmanship,  poetry  —  to  ethics,  re- 
gards war  as  a  valuable  discipline  to  the  State,  a 
protection  against  the  enervating  influence  of  peace. 
As  the  life  of  the  individual  is  divided  between  busi- 
ness and  leisure,  so,  according  to  Aristotle,  the  life 
of  the  State  is  divided  between  war  and  peace.  But 
to  greatness  in  peace,  greatness  in  war  is  a  primal 
condition.  The  State  which  cannot  quit  itself 
greatly  in  war  will  achieve  nothing  great  in  peace. 
"  The  slave/'  he  bitterly  remarks,  "  knows  no  leis- 
ure, and  the  State  which  sets  peace  above  war  is  in 
the  condition  of  a  slave."  Aristotle  does  not  mean 
that  the  slave  is  perpetually  at  work,  or  that  war  is 
the  sole  duty  of  a  great  State,  but  as  the  soul  des- 
tined to  slavery  is  incapable  even  in  leisure  of  the 
contemplations  of  the  soul  destined  to  freedom,  so  to 
the  nation  which  shrinks  from  war  the  greatness 
that  belongs  to  peace  can  never  come.  Courage, 
Plato  defines  as  "  the  knowledge  of  the  things  that 
a  man  should  fear  and  that  he  should  not  fear,"  and 
in  a  state,  a  city,  or  an  empire  courage  consists  in 
the  unfaltering  pursuit  of  its  being's  end  against  all 
odds,  when  once  that  end  is  manifest.  This  ideal 
element,  this  formative  principle,  underlies  the  Hel- 
lenic conception  of  war  throughout  its  history,  from 
its  first  glorification  in  Achilles  to  the  last  combats 
of  the  Achaean  League  —  from  the  divine  beauty  of 


WAR  IN  WORLD-HISTORY          125 

the  youthful  Achilles,  dazzling  as  the  lightning  and 
like  the  lightning  pitiless,  yet  redeemed  to  pathos  by 
the  certainty  of  the  quick  doom  that  awaits  him,  on 
to  the  last  bright  forms  which  fall  at  Leuctra,  Man- 
tinea,  and  Ipsus.  It  requires  a  steadfast  gaze  not 
to  turn  aside  revolted  from  the  destroying  fury  of 
Greeks  against  Greeks  —  Athens,  Thebes,  Sparta, 
Corinth,  and  Macedon  —  and  yet  even  their  claim  to 
live,  their  greatness,  did  in  this  consist,  that  for  so 
light  yet  so  immortal  a  cause  they  were  content  to 
resign  the  sweet  air  and  the  sight  of  the  sun,  and  of 
this  wondrous  fabric  of  a  world  in  which  their  pres- 
ence, theirs,  the  children  of  Hellas,  was  the  divinest 
wonder  of  all. 

Of  the  grandeur  and  elevation  which  Rome  im- 
parted to  war  and  to  man's  nature  it  is  superfluous 
to  speak.  As  in  statesmanship,  so  in  war,  he  who 
would  greatly  praise  another  describes  his  excellence 
as  Roman,  and  thinks  that  all  is  said.  The  silver 
eagle  which  Caius  Marius  gave  as  an  ensign  to  the 
legions  is  for  once  in  history  the  fit  emblem  of  the 
race  that  bore  it  to  victory  and  world-dominion. 
History  by  fate  or  chance  added  a  touch  of  the 
supernatural  to  the  action  of  Marius.  The  silver 
eagle  announced  the  empire  of  the  Csesars ;  the  sub- 
stitution of  the  Labarum  by  Constantine  heralded 
its  decline.  With  the  emblem  of  humiliation  and 
peace,  the  might  of  Rome  sinks,  yet  throughout  the 
centuries  that  follow,  returns  of  galvanic  life,  recol- 


126  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

lections  of  its  ancient  valour  —  as  in  Stilicho,  Belis- 
arius,  Heraclius,  and  Zimisces33 — bear  far  into  the 
Middle  Age  the  dread  name  of  the  Roman  legion, 
though  the  circuit  of  the  eagle's  flight,  once  wide  as 
the  ambient  air,  is  then  narrowed  to  a  league  or 
two  on  either  side  of  the  Bosphorus. 

§    2.       DEFINITION    OF    WAR 

To  push  the  survey  further  would  but  add  to  the 
instances,  without  deepening  the  impression,  of  the 
measureless  power  of  the  ideal  element  in  war,  alike 
in  the  history  of  the  great  races  of  the  past  and  of 
the  present.  Even  the  wars  which  seem  most  arbi- 
trary and,  to  the  judgment  of  their  contemporaries, 
purposeless,  acquire,  upon  a  deeper  scrutiny  and  in 
after  ages,  a  profound  enough  significance.  Behind 
the  immediate  occasion,  trivial  or  capricious,  sordid 
or  grandiose,  the  destiny  of  the  race,  like  the  Nem- 
esis of  Greek  Tragedy,  advancing  relentlessly,  pur- 

33  "  The  twelve  years  of  their  military  command  (i.e.,  of 
Nicephorus  and  Zimisces)  form  the  most  splendid  period  of 
the  Byzantine  annals.  The  sieges  of  Mopsuestia  and  Tarsus 
in  Silicia  first  exercised  the  skill  and  perseverance  of  their 
troops,  on  whom  at  this  moment  I  shall  riot  hesitate  to  bestow 
the  name  of  Romans." —  Gibbon,  chap.  lii.  The  reign  of  Zim- 
isces, A.  D.  969-76,  forms  the  subject  of  the  opening  chapters, 
pp.  1-326,  of  Schlumberger's  massive  work,  Ucpopee  Byzan- 
tine a  la  An  du  dixicme  siccle,  Paris,  1896,  which  exhausts 
every  resource  of  modern  research  into  this  period.  Zimisces' 
rise  to  power,  and  the  career  of  the  other  heroic  figure  of  the 
tenth  century  in  Byzantine  history  are  dealt  with  not  less  ex- 
haustively in  Schlumberger's  earlier  volume,  Un  Empereur 
byzantin,  Paris,  1890. 


DEFINITION  OF  WAR  127 

suing  its  own  far-off  and  lofty  ends,  constantly  re- 
veals itself. 

War,  therefore,  I  would  define  as  a  phase  in  the 
life-effort  of  the  State  towards  completer ..self-reali- 
sation, ,a  phase  of  the  eternal  nisus,  the  perpetual 
omnipresent  strife  of  all  being  towards  self-fulfil- 
ment. Destruction  is  not  its  aim,  but  the  intensifi- 
cation of  the  life,  whether  of  the  conquering  or  of 
the  conquered  State.  War  is  thus  a  manifestation 
of  the  world-spirit  in  the  form  the  most  sublime 
and  awful  that  can  enthrall  the  contemplation  of 
man.  It  is  an  action  radiating  from  the  same  source 
as  the  heroisms,  the  essential  agonies,  dyow'cu,  con- 
flicts, of  all  life.  "  In  this  theatre  of  a  world,"  as 
Calderon  avers,  "  all  are  actors,  todos  son  repre- 
sentantes."  There  too  the  State  enacts  its  tragedy. 
Nation,  city,  or  empire,  it  too  is  a  representante. 
Though  the  stage  is  of  more  imposing  dimensions, 
the  Force  of  which  each  wears  the  mask  is  one  with 
the  Force  which  sets  the  stars  their  path  and  guides 
the  soul  of  man  to  its  appointed  goal.  A  war  then  is 
in  the  development  of  the  consciousness  of  the  State 
analogous  to  those  moments  in  the  individual  career 
when,  in  Hamlet's  phrase,  his  fate  "  crying  out," 
death  is  preferable  to  a  disregard  of  the  Summoner. 
The  state,  the  nation,  or  the  empire  hazards  death, 
is  content  to  resign  existence  itself,  if  so  be  it  fulfil 
but  its  destiny,  and  swerve  not  from  its  being's  law. 
Not  to  be  envied  is  that  man  who,  in  the  solemn 
prayer  of  two  embattled  hosts,  can  discern  but  an 


128  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

organised  hypocrisy,  a  mockery,  an  insult  to  God! 
God  is  the  God  of  all  the  earth,  but  dark  are  the 
ways,  obscure  and  tangled  the  forest-paths,  in  which 
He  makes  His  children  walk.  A  mockery?  That 
cry  for  guidance  in  the  dread  ordeal,  that  prayer  by 
the  hosts,  which  is  but  the  formulated  utterance  of 
the  still,  the  unwhispered  prayer  in  the  heart  of 
each  man  on  the  tented  field  — "  Through  death  to 
life,  even  through  death  to  life,  as  my  country  fares 
on  its  great  path  through  the  thickening  shadows  to 
the  greater  light,  to  the  higher  freedom!  " — is  this 
a  mockery  ?  Yet  such  is  the  prayer  of  armies.  War 
so  considered  ceases  to  be  an  action  continually  to 
be  deplored,  regretted,  or  forgiven,  ceases  to  be  the 
offspring  of  human  weakness  or  human  crime,  and 
the  sentence  of  the  Greek  orator  recovers  its  living 
and  consoling  power — "Of  the  dead  who  have 
fallen  in  battle  the  wide  earth  itself  is  the  sepulchre ; 
their  tomb  is  not  the  grave  in  which  they  are  laid, 
but  the  undying  memory  of  the  generations  that 
come  after  them.  They  perish,  snatched  in  a  mo- 
ment, in  the  height  of  achievement,  not  from  their 
fear,  but  from  their  renown.  Fortunate!  And 
you  who  have  lost  them,  you,  who  as  mortal  have 
been  born  subject  unto  disaster,  how  fortunate  are 
you  to  whom  sorrow  comes  in  so  glorious  a  shape !  " 
Thus  the  great  part  which  war  has  played  in  hu- 
man history,  in  art,  in  poetry,  is  not,  as  Rousseau 
maintains,  an  arraignment  of  the  human  heart,  not 
necessarily  the  blazon  of  human  depravity,  but  a  tes-. 


TOLSTOI  UPON  WAR  129 

tjmony  to  man's  limitless  capacity  for  devotion  to 
other  ends  than  existence  for  existence'  sake  —  his 
pursuit  of  an  ideal,  perpetually. 

§  3.       COUNT  TOLSTOI  AND  CARLYLE  UPON  WAR 

Those  critics  of  the  relations  of  State  to  State,  of 
nation  to  nation,  to  whom  I  have  more  than  once 
referred,  have  recently  found  in  their  condemnation 
of  diplomacy  and  war  a  remarkable  and  powerful 
ally.  Amongst  the  rulers  of  thought,  the  sceptred 
sovereigns  of  the  modern  mind,  Count  Tolstoi  occu- 
pies, in  the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century,  a 
unique  position,  not  without  exterior  resemblance 
to  that  of  Goethe  in  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth, 
or  to  that  of  Voltaire  in  the  great  days  of  Louis 
XV.  In  the  grey  and  neutral  region  where  the 
spheres  of  religion  and  ethics  meet  and  blend,  his 
words,  almost  as  soon  as  spoken,  rivet  the  attention, 
quicken  the  energies,  or  provoke  the  hostility  of  one- 
half  the  world  —  when  he  speaks,  he  speaks  not  to 
Russia  merely,  but  to  Europe,  to  America,  and  to 
the  wide  but  undefined  limits  of  Greater  Britain. 
Of  no  other  living  writer  can  this  be  said.  Carlyle 
had  no  such  extended  sway  in  his  lifetime,  nor  had 
Hugo  so  instantly  a  universal  hearing. 

How  then  does  Tolstoi  regard  War  ?  For  on  this 
high  matter  the  judgment  of  such  a  man  cannot  but 
claim  earnest  scrutiny.  Examining  his  writings, 
even  from  The  Cossacks,  through  such  a  master- 
piece as  War  and  Peace,  colossal  at  once  in  design 


130  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

and  in  execution,  on  to  his  latest  philosophical  pam- 
phlets or  paragraphs,  one  phase  at  least  of  his 
thought  reveals  itself  —  gradually  increasing  vehe- 
mence in  the  expression  of  his  abhorrence  of  all  war 
as  the  instrument  of  oppression,  the  enemy  of  man's 
advance  to  the  ideal  state,  forbidden  by  God,  for- 
bidden above  all  by  Christ,  and  by  its  continued  ex- 
istence turning  our  professed  faith  in  Christ  into  a 
derision.  This  general  impression  is  deepened  by 
his  treatment  of  individual  incidents  and  characters. 
Has  Count  Tolstoi  a  campaign  to  narrate,  or  a  bat- 
tle, say  the  Borodino,  to  describe?  That  which 
rivets  his  attention,  absorbs  his  energies,  is  the  fa- 
tuity of  all  the  generals  indiscriminately,  even  of 
Kutusov;  it  is  the  supremacy  of  Hazard;  and  in  the 
hour  of  battle  itself  he  sees  no  heroisms,  no  devo- 
tions, or  he  turns  aside  from  such  spectacles  to  fas- 
ten his  gaze  upon  the  shuddering  heart,  the  blanched 
countenance,  the  agonising  effort  of  the  combatants 
to  conquer  their  own  terror,  their  own  dismay ;  and 
to  close  the  scene  he  throws  wide  the  hospital,  and 
points  to  the  wounds,  the  mutilated  bodies,  the  ampu- 
tated limbs  yet  quivering,  to  the  fever,  and  the  revel 
of  death.  Has  he  the  enigma  of  modern  times  to 
solve,  Napoleon  I  ?  In  Napoleon,  who  in  the  sphere 
of  action  is  to  Modern  History  what  Shakespeare  is 
in  the  sphere  of  art,  Tolstoi  sees  no  more  than  the 
clerical  harlequin,  Abbe  de  Pradt,  sees,  a  stage  con- 
queror, a  charlatan  devoured  by  vanity,  without 
greatness,  dignity,  without  genius  for  war  yet  im- 


TOLSTOI  UPON  WAR  131 

patient  of  peace,  shallow  of  intellect,  tricking  and 
tricked  by  all  around  him,  dooming  myriads  to  death 
for  the  amusement  of  an  hour,  yet  on  the  dread 
morning  of  Borodino  anxious  only  about  the  quality 
of  the  eau  de  Cologne  with  which  he  lavishly  sprin- 
kles his  handkerchief,  vest,  and  coat.  And  the  cam- 
paigns of  Napoleon,  republican,  consular,  imperial? 
Lodi,  Arcola,  Marengo,  Austerlitz,  Eylau,  Fried- 
land,  Wagram,  Borodino,  Leipzig,  Champaubert, 
and  Montmirail?  These  all  are  the  deeds  of 
Chance,  of  happy  Chance,  the  guide  that  is  no  guide, 
of  the  eyeless,  brutal,  dark,  unthinking  force  resi- 
dent in  masses  of  men.  This  is  Tolstoi's  concep- 
tion of  the  man  who  is  to  the  Aryan  race  what 
Hannibal  is  to  the  Semitic  —  its  crowning  glory  in 
war. 

Consider  in  contrast  with  this  the  attitude  to- 
wards war  of  a  thinker,  a  visionary,  not  less  great 
than  Tolstoi  —  Carlyle.  Like  Tolstoi,  Carlyle  is 
above  all  things  a  prophet,  that  is  to  say,  he  feels  as 
the  Hebrew  prophet  felt,  deeply  and  with  resentful 
passionateness,  the  contrast  between  what  his  race, 
nation,  or  people  is,  and  what,  by  God's  decrees,  it  is 
meant  to  be.  Yet  what  is  Carlyle's  judgment  upon 
war?  His  work  is  the  witness.  After  the  brief 
period  of  Goethe- worship,  from  1834  on  through 
forty  years  of  monastic  seclusion  and  labour  not 
monastic,  but  as  of  a  literary  Hercules,  the  shaping 
thought  of  his  work,  tyrannous  and  all-pervading,  is 
that  of  the  might,  the  majesty,  and  the  mystery  of 


132  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

war.  One  flame-picture  after  another  sets  this 
principle  forth.  What  a  contrast  are  his  battle- 
paintings  to  those  of  Tolstoi!  Consider  the  long 
array  of  them  from  the  first  engagements  of  the 
French  Revolutionary  chiefs  at  Valmy  and  Jemap- 
pes.  These  represent  Carlyle  in  the  flush  of  man- 
hood. His  fiftieth  year  ushers  in  the  battle-pictures 
of  the  Civil  War  —  Marston  Moor,  Naseby,  and 
Dunbar,  when  Cromwell  defeats  the  men  of  Car- 
lyle's  own  nation.  The  greatest  epoch  of  Carlyle's 
life,  the  epoch  of  the  writing  of  Frederick,  is  also 
that  of  the  mightiest  series  of  his  battle-paintings. 
And  finally,  when  his  course  is  nearly  run,  he  rouses 
himself  to  write  the  last  of  all  his  battles,  yet  at 
once  in  characterisation  and  vividness  of  heroic  vi- 
sion one  of  his  finest,  the  death  of  the  great  Ber- 
serker, Olaf  Tryggvason,  the  old  Norse  king.  In 
the  last  sea-fight  of  Olaf  there  flames  up  within  Car- 
lyle's spirit,  now  in  extreme  age,34  the  same  glory 
and  delight  in  war  as  in  the  days  of  his  early  man- 
hood when  he  wrote  Valmy  and  Jemappes.  Since 
the  heroic  age  there  are  no  such  battle-pictures  as 
these.  The  spirit  of  war  that  leaps  and  laughs 
within  these  pages  is  the  spirit  of  Homer  and  Fir- 
dusi,  of  Beowulf  and  the  Song  of  Roland,  and 
when  it  sank,  it  was  like  the  going  down  of  a  sun. 

34  Carlyle  was  in  his  seventy-seventh  year  when  he  com- 
pleted the  Early  Kings  of  Norway.  "  Finished  yesterday  that 
long  rigmarole  upon  the  Norse  kings  "  is  the  comment  in  his 
Journal  under  date  February  I5th,  1872. —  Froude,  Carlyle's 
Life  in  London,  vol.  ii.  p.  411. 


CARLYLE  UPON  WAR  133 

The  breath  that  blows  through  the  Iliad  stirs  the 
pages  of  Cromwell  and  of  Frederick;  Mollwitz, 
Rossbach,  Leuthen,  Zorndorf,  Leignitz,  and  Tor- 
gau,  these  are  to  the  delineation,  the  exposition  of 
modern  warfare,  the  warfare  of  strategy  and  of 
tactics,  what  the  combats  drawn  by  Homer  are  to 
the  warfare  of  earlier  times. 

Now  in  a  mind  not  less  profoundly  religious  than 
that  of  Tolstoi,  not  less  fixedly  conscious  of  the 
Eternal  behind  the  transient,  of  the  Presence  unseen 
that  shapes  all  this  visible  universe,  whence  comes 
this  exaltation  of  war,  this  life-long  pre-occupation 
with  the  circumstance  of  war?  To  Carlyle,  nine- 
teen centuries  after  Christ,  as  to  Thucydides,  four 
centuries  before  Christ,  war  is  the  supreme  expres- 
sion of  the  energy  of  a  State  as  such,  the  supreme, 
the  tragic  hour,  in  the  life-history  of  the  city,  the 
nation,  as  such.  To  Carlyle  war  is  therefore  neither 
anti-religious  nor  inhuman,  but  the  evidence  in  the 
life  of  a  State  of  a  self -consecration  to  an  ideal  end; 
it  is  that  manifestation  of  the  world-spirit  of  which 
I  have  spoken  above  —  a  race,  a  nation,  an  empire, 
conscious  of  its  destiny,  hazarding  all  upon  the  for- 
tunes of  the  stricken  field !  Carlyle,  as  his  writings, 
as  his  recorded  actions  approve,  was  not  less  sensi- 
tive than  Tolstoi  to  the  pity  of  human  life,  to  the 
"  tears  of  things "  as  Virgil  would  say ;  but  are 
there  not  in  every  city,  in  every  town,  hospitals, 
wounds,  mangled  limbs,  fevers,  that  make  of  every 
day  of  this  sad  earth  of  ours  a  day  after  Borodino? 


134  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

The  life  that  pants  out  its  spirit,  exultant  on  the 
battlefield,  knows  but  its  own  suffering ;  it  is  the  eye 
of  the  onlooker  which  discovers  the  united  agony. 
It  was  a  profounder  vision,  a  wider  outlook,  not  a 
harder  heart,  which  made  Carlyle 35  apparently  blind 
to  that  side  of  war  which  alone  rivets  the  attention 
of  Tolstoi  —  the  pathological.  And  yet  Tolstoi  and 
his  house  have  for  generations  been  loyal  to  the 
Czars;  he  has  proved  that  loyalty  on  the  battlefield 
as  his  fathers  before  him  have  done.  Tolstoi  has  no 
system  to  crown,  like  Auguste  Comte  or  Mr.  Her- 
bert Spencer,  with  the  coping-stone  of  universal 
peace  and  a  world  all  sunk  in  bovine  content. 
Whither  then  shall  we  turn  for  an  explanation  of 
his  arraignment  of  war? 

§  4.       COUNT  TOLSTOI  AS  REPRESENTATIVE  OF 
THE    SLAVONIC    GENIUS 

Considering  Tolstoi  as  a  world-ruler,  as  Goethe 
was,  as  Voltaire  was,  a  characteristic  differenti- 
ating him  from  such  men  at  once  betrays  itself. 
The  nimble  spirit  of  Voltaire  in  its  airy  imaginings 
seems  a  native,  or  at  least  a  charming  visitant,  of 
every  clime,  of  every  epoch ;  Goethe,  impelled  more 
by  his  innate  disposition  than  by  any  plan  of  culture, 
draws  strength  and  inspiration  from  a  circuit  even 

35  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer's  characterisation  of  Carlyle  as  a 
devil-worshipper  (Data  of  Ethics,  §  14)  must  be  regarded  less 
as  an  effort  in  serious  criticism  than  as  the  retort,  perhaps  the 
just  retort,  of  the  injured  evolutionist  and  utilitarian  to  the 
Pig  Philosophy  of  the  eighth  of  the  Latter-Day  Pamphlets. 


SLAVONIC  GENIUS  135 

wider  than  Voltaire's  —  Greece,  Rome,  Persia,  Italy, 
the  Middle  Age,  Mediaeval  Germany;  Carlyle's 
work  made  him,  at  least  in  spirit,  a  native  of  France 
for  three  or  four  years,  and  for  twelve  a  German; 
even  Dr.  Henrik  Ibsen  in  his  hot  youth  essayed  a 
Catiline,  and  in  later  life  seeks  the  subject  of  what 
is  perhaps  his  masterpiece,  the  Emperor  and  Gali- 
lean, in  the  Rome  of  the  fourth  century.  But  in 
Russia  Tolstoi  begins  and  in  Russia  he  ends.  As 
volume  after  volume  proceeds  from  his  prolific  pen 
—  essays,  treatises  theological  or  social,  tales,  novels, 
diaries,  or  confessions  —  all  alike  are  Russian  in 
scenery,  Russian  in  character,  Russian  in  tempera- 
ment, Russian  in  their  aspirations,  their  hopes,  or 
their  despairs.  Nowhere  is  there  a  trace  of  Hellas, 
Rome  does  not  exist  for  him,  the  Middle  Age  which 
allured  Hugo  has  for  Tolstoi  no  glamour.  In  this 
he  but  resembles  the  Russian  writers  from  Krilov 
to  the  present  day.  It  is  equally  true  of  Gogol,  of 
Poushkine,  of  Tourgenieff,  of  Herzen,  of  Lermon- 
toff,  of  Dostoievsky.  If  Tourgenieff  has  placed  the 
scene  of  one  of  his  four  longer  works  at  Baden,  yet 
it  is  in  the  Russian  coterie  that  the  tragedy  of  Irene 
Pavlovna  unfolds  itself.  Thus  confined  in  his  range, 
and  in  his  inspiration,  to  his  own  race,  the  work 
of  a  Russian  artist,  or  thinker,  springs  straight 
from  the  heart  of  the  race  itself.  When  therefore 
Tolstoi  speaks  on  war,  he  voices  not  his  own  judg- 
ment merely  but  the  judgment  of  the  race.  In  his 
conception  of  war  the  force  of  the  Slavonic  race 


136  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

behind  him  masters  his  own  individual  genius. 
Capacity  in  a  race  for  war  is  distinct  from  valour. 
Amongst  the  Aryan  peoples,  the  Slav,  the  Hindoo, 
the  Celt  display  valour,  contempt  for  life  unsur- 
passed, but  unlike  the  Roman  or  the  Teuton  they 
have  never  by  war  sought  the  achievement  of  a 
great  political  design,  or  subordinated  the  other 
claims  of  existence,  whether  of  the  nation  or  the 
individual,  for  the  realisation  of  a  great  political 
ideal.  Thus  the  history  of  the  two  western  divisions 
of  the  Slavonic  race,  Poland  and  Bohemia,  reads  like 
the  history  of  Ireland.  It  is  studded  with  combats, 
but  there  is  no  war.  The  downfall  of  Bohemia, 
the  surrender  of  Prague,  the  Weissenberg,  are  but 
an  illustration  of  this  thesis.  And  three  centuries 
earlier  Ottokar  and  his  flaunting  chivalry  go  down 
before  the  charge  of  Rudolf  of  Hapsburg,  like 
Vercingetorix  before  Caius  Julius.  Ziska's  cry  of 
havoc  to  all  the  earth  is  not  redeemed  by  fanati- 
cism and  has  no  intelligible  end.  And  the  noblest 
figure  in  Czech  history,  George  of  Podiebrad,  whose 
portrait  Palacky  36  has  etched  with  laborious  care 

36  The  Revolution  of  1848  made  the  appearance  of  Palacky's 
work  in  the  native  language  of  Bohemia  possible.  Two  vol- 
umes had  already  been  issued  in  German.  If  ever  the  work 
of  a  scholar  and  an  historian  had  the  effect  of  a  national  song, 
this  virtue  may  be  ascribed  to  the  Czech  version  of  Palacky's 
Geschichte  Bohmens.  After  two  centuries  of  subjection  to 
the  Hapsburgs  and  apparent  oblivion  of  her  past,  Bohemia 
awoke  and  discovered  that  she  had  a  history.  Of  the  seven 
volumes  of  the  German  edition,  the  period  dominated  by  the 


SLAVONIC  GENIUS  137 

and   unerring   insight,   is   essentially   a   statesman, 
not  a  warrior. 

Similarly  the  history  of  the  Russian  Slav  has 
marked  organic  resemblances  with  that  of  the  Poles 
and  the  Czechs.  His  sombre  courage,  his  enduring 
fortitude,  are  a  commonplace.  Eylau  and  Friedland 
attested  this,  and  many  a  later  field,  and  the  chron- 
icle of  his  recent  wars,  from  Potiamkin  to  SkobelefT, 
from  Kutusov  to  Todleben,  illustrate  the  justice  of 
Napoleon's  verdict,  "  unparalleled  heroism  in  de- 
fence." And  yet  out  of  the  sword  the  Slav  has 
never  forged  an  instrument  for  the  perfection  of  a 
great  political  ideal.  War  has  served  the  oppression, 
the  ambition  of  his  governments,  not  the  aspirations 
of  his  race.  Conceived  as  the  effort  within  the  life 
of  the  State  towards  a  higher  self-realisation,  the 
Slav  knows  not  war.  He  has  used  war  for  defence 
in  a  manner  memorable  for  ever  to  men,  or  for  cold 
and  pitiless  aggression,  but  in  the  service  of  a  con- 
structive ideal,  stretched  across  generations  or 
across  centuries,  he  has  never  used  it.  Even  the 
conquest  of  Siberia,  from  the  first  advance  of  the 
Novgorod  merchants  in  the  eleventh  century, 
through  the  wars  of  Ivan  IV,  and  his  successors, 
attests  this.  The  Don  Cossacks  destroy  the  last 
remnant  of  the  mighty  Mongol  dynasty,  a  fragment 
flung  off  from  the  convulsion  of  the  thirteenth 
century,  ruled  by  a  descendant  of  Ginghis.  The 

personality  of  George  of  Podiebrad  forms  the  subject  of  the 
fourth   (Prague,  1857-60). 


138  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

government  of  the  Czars  astutely  annexes  the  fruits 
of  Cossack  valour,  but  in  the  administration  of 
its  first  remarkable  conquest  the  irremediable  defect 
of  the  Slavonic  race  declares  itself.  The  innate 
energy,  the  determining  genius  for  constructive  poli- 
tics which  marks  races  destined  for  empire,  every- 
where is  wanting.  Indeed  the  very  despotism  of  the 
Czars,  alien  in  blood,  foreign  in  character,  derives  its 
present  security,  as  once  its  origin,  from  the  immov- 
able languor,  the  unconquerable  tendency  of  the 
Slav  towards  political  indifferent  ism.  Nihilism,  the 
tortured  revolt  a'gainst  a  secular  wrong,  is  but  a 
morbid  expression  of  emotions  and  aspirations  that 
have  marked  the  Slav  throughout  history.  Cather- 
ine the  Great  felt  this.  Its  spirit  baulked  her  enter- 
prise in  the  very  hour  when  Voltaire  urged  that  now 
if  ever  was  the  opportunity  to  recover  Constan- 
tinople from  "  the  fanaticism  of  the  Moslem."  The 
impressive  designs  of  Nicholas  I  left  the  heart  of 
the  race  untouched,  and  in  recent  times  the  cynicism 
which  has  occasionally  startled  or  revolted  Europe 
is  but  a  pseudo-Machiavellianism.  It  does  not  orig- 
inate, like  the  policy  which  a  Polybiu-s  or  a  Machia- 
velli,  a  Richelieu  or  a  Mirabeau  have  described  or 
practised,  in  the  pursuit  of  a  majestic  design  before 
whose  ends  all  must  yield,  but  from  the  absence  of 
such  design,  betraying  the  camerilla  which  has 
neither  race  nor  nation,  people  nor  city,  behind  it. 
Russia's  mightiest  adversary,  Napoleon,  knew  the 
character  of  the  race  more  intimately  than  its  idol, 


CHRIST  AND  WAR  139 

Napoleon's  adroit  flatterer  and  false  friend,  the  Czar 
Alexander,  knew  it;  yet  the  enthusiast  of  Valerie, 
supple  and  calculating  even  in  his  mysticism,  is  still 
the  noblest  representative  of  the  oppressive  policy 
of  two  hundred  years.37 

Such  is  the  light  which  the  temperament  of  his 
race  and  its  history  throw  upon  Count  Tolstoi's 
arraignment  of  war.  The  government  perceives  in 
the  solitary  thinker  its  adversary,  but  an  adversary 
who,  unlike  a  Bakounine,  a  Nekrasoff,  or  a  Herzen, 
gives  form  and  utterance  not  to  the  theories,  the 
social  or  political  doctrines  of  an  individual  or  a 
party,  but  to  the  universal  instincts  of  the  whole 
Slavonic  people.  Therefore  he  will  not  die  in  exile. 
The  bigotry  of  a  priest  may  deny  his  remains  a 
hallowed  resting-place,  but  the  government,  in- 
structed by  the  craft  of  Nicholas  I,  and  the  fate  of 
Alexander  III,  will  allow  the  creator  of  Anna  Kare- 
nina,  of  Natascha,  and  of  Ivan  Illy  itch,  to  breathe 
to  the  last  the  air  of  the  steppes. 

§  5.       THE   TEACHINGS   OF    CHRIST   AND   WAR 

There  remains  an  aspect  of  this  question,  fre- 
quently dealt  with  in  the  writings  of  Tolstoi,  but 
by  no  means  confined  to  these  writings,  to  which  I 
must  allude  briefly.  There  are  many  men  within 

37  France  has  given  the  world  the  Revolution ;  Germany, 
the  Reformation;  Italy,  modern  Art;  but  Russia?  "We," 
Tourgenieff  once  said,  "  we  have  given  the  samovar."  But 
that  poet's  own  works,  the  symphonies  of  Tschaikowsky,  the 
one  novel  of  Dostoievsky,  have  changed  all  this. 


i4o  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

these  islands,  if  I  mistake  not,  who  regard  with 
pride  and  emotion  the  acts  of  England  in  this  great 
crisis,  but  nevertheless  are  oppressed  with  a  vague 
consciousness  that  war,  for  whatever  cause  waged, 
is,  as  Tolstoi  declares,  directly  hostile  to  the  com- 
mands, to  the  authority  of  Christ.  This  is  a  subject 
which  I  approach  with  reluctance,  with  reverence, 
more  for  the  sake  of  those  amongst  you  upon  whom 
such  conviction  may  have  weighed,  than  from  any 
value  I  attach  to  the  suggestions  I  have  now  to  offer. 
First  of  all,  as  we  have  seen  from  this  brief  survey 
of  the  wars  of  the  past,  the  most  religious  of  the 
great  races  of  the  world,  and  the  most  religious 
amongst  the  divisions  of  those  races  —  the  Hebrews, 
the  Romans,  the  Teutons,  the  Saracens,  the  Osmanli 
—  have  been  the  most  warlike  and  have  pursued 
in  war  the  loftiest  political  ends.  The  fact  is  sig- 
nificant, because  war,  like  religion  and  like  language, 
represents  not  the  individual  but  the  race,  the  city, 
or  the  nation.  In  a  work  of  art,  the  Ph&drus 
of  Plato  or  the  Bacchus  and  Ariadne  of  Titian, 
the  genius  of  the  individual  is,  in  appearance  at 
least,  sovereign  and  despotic.  But  as  a  language 
represents  the  happy  moments  of  inspiration  of 
myriads  of  unremembered  poets,  who  divined  the 
fit  sound,  the  perfect  word,  harmonious  or  harsh, 
to  embody  for  ever,  and  to  all  succeeding  generations 
of  the  race,  its  recurring  moods  of  desire  or  delight, 
of  pain,  or  sorrow,  or  fear ;  and  as  in  a  religion  the 
heart-aspirations  towards  the  Divine  of  a  long  series 


CHRIST  AND  WAR  141 

of  generations  converge,  by  genius  or  fortune,  into 
a  flame-like  intensity  in  a  Zerdusht,  a  Mohammed, 
or  a  Gautama  Buddha ;  so  war  represents  the  action, 
the  deed,  not  of  the  individual  but  of  the  race. 
Religion  incarnates  the  thought,  language  the  imagi- 
nation, war  the  resolution,  the  will,  of  a  race. 
Reflecting  then  on  the  part  which  war  has  played  in 
the  history  of  the  most  deeply  religious  races,  and 
of  those  States  in  which  the  attributes  of  awe,  of 
reverence  are  salient  features,  it  is  surely  idle  enough 
to  essay  an  arraignment  of  war  as  opposed  to  reli- 
gion in  general. 

Secondly,  with  regard  to  a  particular  religion, 
the  Christian,  it  is  remarkable  that  Count  Tolstoi, 
who  has  striven  so  nobly  to  reach  the  faith  beyond 
the  creeds,  and  in  his  volume  entitled  My  Religion 
has  thrown  out  several  illuminating  ideas  upon  the 
teachings  of  Christ  as  distinct  from  those  of  later 
creeds  or  sects,  should  not  have  perceived,  or  should 
have  ignored  the  circumstance  that  in  the  actual 
utterances  of  Christ  there  is  not  to  be  found  one 
word,  not  one  syllable,  condemnatory  of  war  between 
nation  and  nation,  between  State  and  State.  The 
locus  classicus,  "  All  that  take  the  sword,"  etc.,  is 
aimed  at  the  impetuosity  of  the  person  addressed, 
or  at  its  outmost  range  against  civic  revolt.  It  is 
only  by  wrenching  the  words  from  their  context 
that  it  becomes  possible  to  extend  their  application 
to  the  relations  of  one  State  to  another.  The  or- 
ganic unity,  named  a  State,  is  not  identical  with  the 


142  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

units  which  compose  it,  nor  is  it  a  mere  aggregate 
of  those  units.  If  there  is  a  lesson  which  history 
enforces  it  is  this  lesson.  And  upon  the  laws 
which  regulate  those  unities  named  States,  Christ 
nowhere  breathes  a  word.  The  violence  of  faction 
or  enthusiasm  have  indeed  forced  such  decision  from 
his  utterances.  Camille  Desmoulins,  in  a  moment 
of  rash  and  unreasoning  rhetoric,  styled  Him  "  le 
bon  sans-culotte,"  and  in  the  days  of  the  Inter- 
nationale, Michael  Bakounine  traced  the  beginnings 
of  Nihilism  to  Galilee;  just  as  in  recent  times  the 
Anarchist,  the  Socialist  have  in  His  sanction  sought 
the  justification  of  their  crimes  or  their  fantasies. 
But  in  His  whole  teaching  there  is  nothing  that 
affects  the  politics  of  State  and  State.  Ethics  and 
metaphysics  were  outlined  in  His  utterances,  but 
not  politics.  His  solitary  reference  to  war  as  such 
contains  no  reprobation;  a  perverse  ingenuity 
might  even  twist  it  into  a  maxim  of  prudence,  a 
tacit  assent  to  war.  And  the  peace  upon  which 
Christ  dwells  in  one  great  phrase  after  another  is 
not  the  amity  of  States,  but  a  profounder,  a  more 
intimate  thing.  It  is  the  peace  on  which  the  Hebrew 
and  the  Arab  poets  insist,  the  peace  which  arises 
within  the  soul,  ineffable,  wondrous,  from  a  sense 
of  reconciliation,  of  harmony  with  the  Divine,  a 
peace  which  may,  which  does,  exist  on  the  battle- 
field as  in  the  hermit's  cell,  in  the  fury  of  the  onset 
as  deep  and  tranquil  as  in  the  heart  of  him  who 
rides  alone  in  the  desert  beneath  the  midnight  stars. 


CHRIST  AND  WAR  143 

Tolstoi's  criticism  here  arises  from  his  extension 
to  the  more  complex  and  intricate  unity  of  the  State 
of  the  same  laws  which  regulate  the  simpler  unity 
of  the  individuals  who  compose  the  State.  And 
of  such  a  war  as  this  in  which  Britain  is  now  en- 
gaged, a  war  in  its  origin  and  course  determined  by 
that  ideal  which  in  these  lectures  I  have  sketched,  a 
war  whose  end  is  the  larger  freedom,  the  higher 
justice,  a  war  whose  aim  is  not  merely  peace,  but  the 
full,  the  living  development  of  those  conditions  of 
man's  being  without  which  peace  is  but  an  empty 
name,  a  war  whose  end  is  to  deepen  the  life  not 
only  of  the  conquering,  but  of  the  conquered  State 
—  who  shall  assert,  in  the  face  of  Christ's  reserve, 
that  such  a  war  is  contrary  to  the  teachings  of 
Galilee? 

Finally,  as  the  complement  of  this  condemnation 
of  w;ir  as  the  enemy  of  religion,  men  are  exhorted, 
by  the  refusal  of  military  service  or  other  means, 
to  strive  as  for  the  attainment  of  some  fair  vision 
towards  the  establishment  of  the  empire  of  perpetual 
peace.  The  advent  of  this  new  era,  it  is  announced, 
is  at  hand. 

§  6.       THE   IDEAL   OF    UNIVERSAL   PEACE 

Now  the  origins  of  this  ideal  are  clear.  It  is 
ancient  as  life,  and  before  man  was,  it  was.  It  is 
the  transference  to  the  sphere  of  States  of  the  deep- 
est instinctive  yearning  of  all  being,  from  the  rock 
to  the  soul  of  man,  the  yearning  towards  peace, 


144  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

towards  the  rest,  the  immortal  leisure  which,  to 
apply  the  phrase  of  Aristotle,  the  soul  shall  know  in 
death,  the  deeper  vision,  the  unending  contempla- 
tion, the  theoria  of  eternity.  The  error  of  its  enthu- 
siasts, from  Saint-Pierre  and  Vauvenargues  to 
Herbart  and  Count  Tolstoi,  lies  in  the  interpretation 
of  this  cosmic  desire,  deep  as  the  wells  of  existence 
itself,  and  in  the  extension  to  the  Conditioned  of  a 
phase  of  the  Unconditioned. 

Will  War  then  never  cease  ?  Will  universal  peace 
be  for  ever  but  a  dream?  Upon  this  question  a 
consideration  of  the  ideal  itself,  of  the  forms  in 
which  at  various  epochs  it  has  presented  itself,  and 
of  the  crises  at  which,  appearing  or  reappearing,  it 
most  profoundly  engages  the  imagination  of  a  race, 
is  instructive. 

In  Hebrew  history,  for  instance,  it  arises  in  the 
hour  of  defeat,  in  the  consternation  of  a  great  race 
struck  by  irretrievable  disaster.  "  How  beautiful 
upon  the  mountains  are  the  feet  of  him  that  bring- 
eth  good  tidings,  that  publisheth  peace !  "  In  this 
and  in  other  splendid  pages  of  Isaiah  we  possess  the 
first  distinct  enunciation  of  this  ideal  in  world-his- 
tory, and  with  what  a  transforming  radiance  it  is 
invested !  In  what  a  majesty  of  light  and  insuffer- 
able glory  it  is  uplifted!  But  it  is  a  vision  of  the 
future,  to  be  accomplished  in  ages  undreamed  of 
yet.  It  is  the  throb  of  the  Hebrew  soul  beyond  this 
earthly  sphere  and  beyond  this  temporal  dominion, 
to  the  immortal  spheres  of  being,  inviolate  of  Time. 


UNIVERSAL  PEACE  145 

Yet  even  this  vision,  though  co-terminous  with  the 
world,  centres  in  Judaea — in  the  triumph  of  the 
Hebrew  race  and  the  overthrow  of  all  its  adversaries. 

Similarly,  to  Plato  and  to  Isocrates,  to  Aristotle 
and  to  Aeschines,  if  peace  is  to  be  extended  to  all 
the  earth  "  like  a  river,"  Hellas  is  the  fountain  from 
which  it  must  flow.  It  is  an  imperial  peace  bounded 
by  Hellenic  civilisation,  culture,  laws.  It  is  a  peace 
fQrged_u£on_war.  Rome  with  her  genius  for  ac- 
tuality discovers  this. 

"  Pray  for  the  peace  of  Jerusalem :  they  shall 
prosper  that  love  thee.  Peace  be  within  thy  walls, 
and  prosperity  within  thy  palaces.  For  my  breth- 
ren and  companions'  sakes,  I  will  now  say,  '  Peace 
be  within  thee.' '  Substituting  Hellas  for  Jerusa- 
lem, this  is  the  prayer  of  a  Greek  of  the  age  of 
Isocrates,  of  Cleanthes,  and  of  Alexander. 

Rome  by  war  ends  war,  and  establishes  the  Pax 
Romana  within  her  dominions,  Spain,  Gaul,  Africa, 
Asia,  Syria,  Egypt.  Disregarding  the  dying  coun- 
sels of  Augustus,  Rome  remains  at  truceless  war 
with  the  world  outside  those  limits.  St.  Just's  proud 
resignation,  "  For  the  revolutionist  there  is  no  rest 
but  the  grave,"  is  for  ever  true  of  those  races  dow- 
ered with  the  high  and  tragic  doom  of  empire. 
To  pause  isjdisaster;  to  recede,  destruction.  Rome 
understood  this,  and  her  history  is  its  great  comment. 

To  Islam  the  point  at  which  she  can  bestow  her 
peace  upon  men  is  not  less  clear,  fixed  by  a  power  not 
less  unalterable  and  high.  Neither  Haroun  nor  Al- 


146  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

Maimoun  could,  with  all  their  authority  and  state- 
craft, stay  the  steep  course  of  Islam;  for  the  wisdom 
of  a  race  is  wiser  than  the  wisdom  of  a  man,  and  the 
sword  which,  in  Abu  Bekr's  phrase,  the  Lord  has 
drawn,  Islam  sheathes  but  on  the  Day  of  Judgment. 
Then  and  then  only  shall  the  Holy  War  end. 

The  Peace  of  Islam,  Shalom,  which  is  its  designa- 
tion, is  the  serenity  of  soul  of  the  warriors  of  God 
whose  life  is  a  warfare  unending.  And  Virgil  — 
in  that  early  masterpiece,  which  in  the  Middle  Age 
won  for  all  his  works  the  felicity  or  the  misfortune 
attached  to  the  suspicion  of  an  inspiration  other 
than  Castalian,  and  drew  to  his  grave  pilgrims  fired 
by  an  enthusiasm  whose  fountain  was  neither  the 
ballad-burthen  music  of  the  Ge orgies,  nor  the  meas- 
ureless pathos  and  pity  for  things  human  of  the 
Aeneid  —  has  sung  the  tranquil  beauty  of  the  Satur- 
nian  age ;  yet  the  peace  which  suggests  his  prophetic 
memory  or  hope  is  but  the  peace  of  Octavianus, 
the  end  of  civil  discord,  of  the  proscriptions,  the 
conflicts  of  Pharsalia,  Philippi,  Actium,  a  moment's 
respite  to  a  war-fatigued  world. 

Passing  from  the  ancient  world  to  the  modern, 
we  encounter  in  the  Middle  Age  within  Europe  that 
which  is  known  amongst  mediaeval  Latinists  as  the 
Treva,  or  Treuga  Dei.  This  "  Truce  of  God  "  was 
a  decree  promulgated  throughout  Eur'ope  for  the 
cessation  at  certain  sacred  times  of  that  feudal 
strife,  that  war  of  one  noble  against  another  which 
darkens  our  early  history.  It  is  the  mediaeval  equiv- 


UNIVERSAL  PEACE  147 

alent  of  the  Pax  Romana  and  is  but  dimly  related 
to  any  ideal  of  Universal  Peace.  Hildebrand,  who 
gave  this  Truce  of  God  more  support  than  any  other 
Pope  in  the  Middle  Age,  lights  the  fire  of  the  cru- 
sades, giving  to  war  one  of  the  greatest  consecra- 
tions that  war  has  ever  received.  And  the  attitude 
of  Mediaeval  Europe  towards  the  eternal  peace  is 
the  attitude  of  Judaea,  of  Hellas,  and  of  Rome.38 

38  Nevertheless  the  Truce  of  God  is  one  of  the  noblest  ef- 
forts of  mediaeval  Europe.  It  drew  its  origins  from  southern 
France,  arising  partly  from  the  misery  of  the  people  op- 
pressed by  the  constant  and  bloody  strife  of  feudal  princes  and 
barons,  heightened  at  that  time  by  the  fury  of  a  pestilence, 
partly  also  from  a  widespread  and  often  fixed  and  controlling 
persuasion  that  with  the  close  of  the  century  the  thousand 
years  of  the  Apocalypse  would  be  fulfilled,  and  that  with  the 
year  A.  D.  1000  the  Day  of  Judgment  would  dawn.  Ducange 
has  collected  the  evidence  bearing  on  the  use  of  the  Latin 
term,  and  Semichon's  admirable  work,  La  Paix  et  la  Treve 
de  Dieu,  premiere  edition,  1857,  deuxieme  edition  revue  et 
augmentee,  1869,  sketches  the  growth  of  the  movement.  With 
the  eleventh  century,  though  the  social  misery  is  unaltered, 
the  force  of  the  mystic  impulse  is  lost;  at  the  synod  of 
Tuluges  in  1027  the  days  of  the  week  on  which  the  Truce 
must  be  observed  are  limited  to  two.  But  towards  the  close 
of  the  century  the  rising  power  of  Hildebrand  and  the  crusad- 
ing enthusiasm  gave  the  movement  new  life,  and  the  days 
during  which  all  war  was  forbidden  were  extended  to  four 
of  the  seven  days  of  the  week,  those  sacred  to  the  Last  Supper, 
Death,  Sepulture,  and  Resurrection.  With  the  decline  of  the 
crusading  spirit  and  the  rise  of  monarchical  principles  the  in- 
fluence and  use  of  the  Treuga  waned.  The  verses  of  the 
troubadour,  Bertrand  le  Born,  are  celebrated — "Peace  is  not 
for  me,  but  war,  war  alone !  What  to  me  are  Mondays  and 
Tuesdays?  And  the  weeks,  months,  and  years,  all  are  alike 
to  me."  The  stanza  fitly  expresses  the  way  in  which  the 


I48  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

This  is  conspicuous  in  Saint  Bernard,  the  last  of  the 
Fathers,  and  three  centuries  later  in  Pius  II,  the  last 
of  the  crusading  Pontiffs,  the  desire  of  whose  life 
was  to  go  even  in  his  old  age  upon  a  crusade.  This 
desire  uplifts  and  bears  him  to  his  last  resting-place 
in  Ancona,  where  the  old  man,  in  his  dying  dreams, 
hears  the  tramp  of  legions  that  never  came,  sees  upon 
the  Adriatic  the  sails  of  galleys  that  were  to  bear  the 
crusaders  to  Palestine  —  yet  there  were  neither 
armies  nor  ships,  it  was  but  the  fever  of  his  dream. 
During  the  Reformation  the  ideal  of  Universal 
Peace  is  unregarded.  The  wars  of  religion,  the 
world's  debate,  become  the  war  of  creeds.  "  I  am 
not  come  to  bring  peace  among  you,  but  a  sword." 
Luther,  for  instance,  declares  war  against  the  re- 
volted peasants  of  Germany  with  all  the  ardour  and 
fury  with  which  Innocent  III  denounced  war  against 
the  Albigenses.  War  in  the  language  and  thoughts 
of  Calvin  is  what  it  became  to  Oliver  Cromwell, 
to  the  Huguenots,  and  to  the  Scottish  Covenanters, 
to  Jean  Chevallier  and  the  insurgents  of  the  Ce- 
vennes.  As  Luther  in  the  sixteenth  century  repre- 
sents the  religious  side  of  the  Reformation,  so  Gro- 
tius  in  the  seventeenth  century  represents  the  position 
of  the  legists  of  the  Reformation.  In  his  work,  De 
Jure  Belli  ac  Pacis,  Universal  Peace  as  an  object  of 
practical  politics  is  altogether  set  aside.  War  is 
accepted  as  existent  between  nation  and  nation,  State 

Truce  had  come  to  be  regarded  by  feudal  society  towards  the 
close  of  the  twelfth  century. 


UNIVERSAL  PEACE  149 

and  State,  and  Grotius  lays  down  the  laws  which 
regulate  it.  Similar  attempts  had  been  made  in  the 
religious  councils  of  Greece,  and  when  the  first  great 
Saracen  army  was  starting  upon  its  conquests,  the 
first  of  the  Khali fs  delivered  to  that  army  instruc- 
tions which  in  their  humanity  have  never  been  sur- 
passed; the  utmost  observances  of  chivalry  or  mod- 
ern times  are  there  anticipated.  But  the  treatise  of 
Grotius  is  the  first  elaboration  of  the  subject  in  the 
method  of  his  contemporary,  Verulam  —  the  method 
of  the  science  of  the  future. 

In  the  eighteenth  century  the  singular  work  of 
the  mild  and  amiable  enthusiast,  the  Abbe  de  Saint- 
Pierre,39  made  a  profound  impression  upon  the 
thought  not  only  of  his  own  but  of  succeeding  gen- 
erations. Kings,  princes,  philosophers,  sat  in  in- 
formal conference  debating  the  same  argument  as 

39  St.-Pierre's  work  appeared  in  1712,  three  years  after  Mal- 
plaquet,  the  most  sanguinary  struggle  of  the  Marlborough 
wars.  It  is  thus  synchronous  with  the  last  gloomy  years  of 
Louis  XIV,  when  France,  and  her  king  also,  seemed  sinking 
into  the  mortal  lethargy  of  Jesuitism.  St.-Simon  in  his  early 
volumes  has  written  the  history  of  these  years.  Voltaire  ac- 
cuses St.-Pierre  of  originating  or  encouraging  the  false  im- 
pression that  he  had  derived  his  theory  from  the  Dauphin, 
the  pupil  of  Fenelon  and  the  Marcellus  of  the  French  Mon- 
archy. An  English  translation  of  St.-Pierre's  treatise  was 
published  in  1714  with  the  following  characteristic  title-page: 
"  A  Project  for  settling  an  Everlasting  Peace  in  Europe,  first 
proposed  by  Henry  IV  of  France,  and  approved  of  by  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  most  of  the  Princes  of  Europe,  and  now  dis- 
cussed at  large  and  made  practicable  by  the  Abbot  St.  Pierre 
of  the  French  Academy." 


1 50  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

has  recently  occupied  the  dignitaries  at  The  Hague. 
It  inspired  some  of  the  most  earnest  pages  of 
D'Alembert  and  of  the  Encyclopedic.  It  drew  from 
Voltaire  some  happy  invective,  affording  the  oppor- 
tunity of  airing  once  more  his  well-loved  but  worth- 
less paradox  on  the  trivial  causes  from  which  the 
great  actions  of  history  arise.  Saint-Pierre's  ideal 
informs  the  early  chapters  of  Gibbon's  History,  but 
its  influence  disappears  as  the  work  advances.  It 
charmed  the  fancy  of  Rousseau,  and,  by  a  curious 
irony,  he  inflamed  by  his  impassioned  argument  that 
war  for  freedom  which  is  to  the  undying  glory  of 
France.40 

Frederick  the  Great  in  his  extreme  age  w^ote  to 
Voltaire:  "Running  over  the  pages  of  history  I 
see  that  ten  years  never  pass  without  a  war.  This 
intermittent  fever  may  have  moments  of  respite,  but 
cease,  never!  "  This  is  the  last  word  of  the  eight- 
eenth century  upon  the  dream  of  Universal  Peace  — 
a  word  spoken  by  one  of  the  greatest  of  kings,  look- 
ing out  with  dying  eyes  upon  a  world  about  to  close 

40  As  late  as  1791  we  find  Priestley  looking  to  the  French 
Revolution  as  the  precursor  of  the  era  of  Universal  Peace. 
In  a  discourse  delivered  at  "the  Meeting  House  in  the  Old- 
Jewry,  27th  April,  1791,"  he  describes  the  "glorious  enthusi- 
asm which  has  for  its  objects  the  flourishing  of  science  and 
the  extinction  of  wars."  France,  he  declares,  "  has  ensured 
peace  to  itself  and  to  other  nations  at  the  same  time,  cutting 
off  almost  every  possible  cause  of  war,"  and  enables  us  "  to 
prognosticate  the  approach  of  the  happy  times  in  which  the 
sure  prophecies  of  Scripture  inform  us  that  wars  shall  cease 
and  universal  peace  and  harmony  take  place." 


UNIVERSAL  PEACE  151 

in  one  of  the  deadliest  yet  most  heroic  and  memor- 
able conflicts  set  down  in  the  annals  of  our  race. 
The  Hundred  Days  are  its  epilogue  —  the  war  of 
twenty-five  years  ending  in  that  great  manner! 
Then,  like  a  pallid  dawn,  the  ideal  once  more  arises. 
Congress  after  congress  meets  in  ornamental  debate, 
till  six  can  be  reckoned,  or  even  seven,  culminating 
in  the  recent  conference  at  The  Hague.  Its  derisive 
results,  closing  the  debate  of  the  nineteenth,  as 
Frederick's  words  sum  the  debate  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  are  too  fresh  in  all  men's  memories  to  re- 
quire a  syllable  of  comment. 

Thus  then  it  appears  from  a  glance  at  its  history 
that  this  ideal  of  Universal  Peace  has  stirred  the 
imagination  most  deeply,  first  of  all  in  the  ages  when 
an  empire,  whether  Persian,  Hebraic,  Hellenic,  or 
Roman  conterminous  with  earth,  wide  as  the  in- 
habited world,  was  still  in  appearance  realisable; 
or,  again,  in  periods  of  defeat,  or  of  civil  strife,  as  in 
the  closing  age  of  the  Roman  oligarchy;  or  in  the 
moments  of  exhaustion  following  upon  long-con- 
tinued and  desolating  war,  as  in  Modern  Europe 
after  the  last  phases  of  the  Reformation  conflict, 
the  wars  of  Tilly  and  Wallenstein,  of  Marlbo rough 
and  Eugene,  and  of  Frederick.  The  familiar  poetry 
in  praise  of  peace,  and  the  Utopias,  the  composition 
of  which  has  amused  the  indolence  of  scholars  or 
the  leisure  of  statesmen,  originate  in  such  hours  or 
in  such  moods.  On  the  other  hand,  the  criticism 
of  war,  scornful  or  ironic,  of  the  great  thinkers  and 


1 52  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

speculative  writers  of  modern  times,  when  it  is  not 
merely  the  phantom  of  their  logic,  an  eidolon  specus 
created  by  their  system,  arises  in  the  most  impressive 
instances  less  from  admiration  or  desire  or  hope  of 
perpetual  peace  than  from  the  arraignment  of  all 
life,  and  all  the  ideals,  activities,  and  purposes  of 
men. 

Hence  the  question  whether  war  be  a  permanent 
condition  of  human  life  is  answered  by  implication. 
For  the  history  of  the  ideal  of  Universal  Peace  but 
re-enforces  that  definition  of  war  set  forth  above,  as 
a  manifestation  of  the  world-spirit,  co-extensive 
with  being,  and  as  such,  inseparable  from  man's 
life  here  and  now.  In  all  these  great  wars  which  we 
have  touched  upon,  the  conflict  of  two  ideas,  in 
the  Platonic  sense  of  the  word,  unveils  itself,  but 
both  ideas  are  ultimately  phases  of  one  Idea.  It  is 
by  conflict  alone  that  life  realises  itself.  That  is 
the  be-all  and  end-all  of  life  as  such,  of  Being  as 
such.  From  the  least  developed  forms  of  struc- 
tural or  organic  nature  to  the  highest  form  in  which 
the  world-force  realises  itself,  the  will  and  imagina- 
tion of  Man,  this  law  is  absolute.  The  very  magic 
of  the  stars,  their  influence  upon  the  human  heart, 
derives  somethilng  of  its  potency,  one  sometimes 
fancies,  from  the  vast,  the  silent,  mighty  strife,  the 
victorious  energy,  which  brings  their  rays  across 
the  abysses  and  orbits  of  the  worlds. 

What  is  the  art  of  Hellas  but  the  conquest  of  the 
rock,  the  marble,  and  the  fixing  there  in  perennial 


UNIVERSAL  PEACE  153 

beauty,  perennial  calm,  the  thought  born  from  the 
travail  of  the  sculptor's  brain,  or  from  the  unre- 
corded struggle  of  dark  forces  in  the  past,  which 
emerge  now  in  a  vision  of  transcendent  rapture  and 
light  ?  By  this  conflict,  multiplex  or  simple,  the  con- 
quering energy  of  the  form,  the  defeated  energy  of 
the  material,  the  serenity  of  the  statues  of  Phidias, 
of  the  tragedies  of  Sophocles,  is  attained.  They  are 
the  symbol,  the  visible  embodiment  of  the  moment 
of  deepest  vision,  and  of  the  deepest  agony  now  at 
rest  there,  a  loveliness  for  ever.  And  as  the  seons 
recede,  as  the  intensity  of  the  idea  of  the  Divine 
within  man  increases,  so  does  this  conflict,  this 
agonia  increase.  It  is  in  the  heart  of  the  tempest 
that  the  deepest  peace  dwells. 

The  power,  the  place  of  conflict,  thus  great  in  Art, 
is  in  the  region  of  emotional,  of  intellectual  and  of 
moral  life,  admittedly  supreme.  Doubt,  contrition 
of  soul,  and  the  other  modes  of  spiritual  agonia,  are 
not  these  equivalent  with  the  life,  not  death,  of  the 
soul? 

And  those  moments  of  serenest  peace,  when  the 
desire  of  the  heart  is  one  with  the  desire  of  the 
world-soul,  are  not  these  attained  by  conflict?  In 
the  life  of  the  State,  the  soul  of  the  State,  as  com- 
posed of  such  monads,  such  constituent  forms  and 
organic  elements,  each  penetrated  and  impelled  by 
the  divine,  self-realising,  omnipresent  nisus,  how 
vain  to  hope,  to  desire,  to  pray,  that  there  this 
mystic  all-pervading  Force,  this  onward-striving, 


154  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

this  conflict,  which  is  as  it  were  the  very  essence  and 
necessary  law  of  being,  should  pause  and  have  an 
end !  War  may  change  its  shape,  the  struggle  here 
intensifying,  there  abating  it;  it  may  be  uplifted  by 
ever  loftier  purposes  and  nobler  causes  —  but  cease  ? 
How  shall  it  cease? 

Indeed,  in  the  light  of  History,  universal  peace 
appears  less  as  a  dream  than  as  a  nightmare  which 
shall  be  realised  only  when  the  ice  has  crept  to  the 
heart  of  the  sun,  and  the  stars,  left  black  and  track- 
less, start  from  their  orbits. 

§  7.       IMPERIALISM    AND   WAR 

If  war  then  be  a  permanent  factor  in  the  life  of 
States,  how,  it  may  be  asked,  will  it  be  affected  by 
Imperialism  and  by  such  an  ideal  as  this  of  Imperial 
Britain?  The  effects  upon  war,  will,  I  should  say, 
be  somewhat  of  this  nature.  It  will  greaten  and  ex- 
alt the  character  of  war.  Not  only  in  constitutional, 
but  in  foreign  politics,  the  roots  of  the  present  lie 
deep  in  the  past.  In  the  wars  of  an  imperial  State 
the  ideals  of  all  the  wars  of  the  past  still  live,  adding 
a  fuller  life  to  the  life  of  the  present.  From  the 
earliest  tribal  forays,  slowly  broadening  through  the 
struggles  of  feudalism  and  Plantagenet  kings  to 
the  wars  of  the  nation,  one  creative  purpose,  one 
informing  principle  links  century  to  century,  devel- 
oping itself  at  last  in  the  wars  of  empire,  wars  for 
the  larger  freedom,  the  higher  justice.  And  this 
ideal  differs  from  the  ideal  of  primitive  times  as  the 


IMPERIALISM  AND  WAR  155 

vast  complexity  of  races,  peoples,  religions,  climates, 
traditions,  literatures,  arts,  manners,  laws,  which  the 
word  "  Britain "  now  conceals,  differs  from  the 
'  companies  '  and  '  hundreds  '  of  daring  warriors 
who  followed  the  fortunes  of  a  Cerdic  or  an  Uffa. 
For  the  State  which  by  conquest  or  submission  is 
merged  in  the  life  of  another  State  does  not  thereby 
evade  that  law  of  conflict  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
but  becomes  subject  to  that  law  in  the  life  of  the 
greater  State,  national  or  imperial,  of  which  it  now 
forms  a  constituent  and  organic  part.  And  looming 
already  on  the  horizon,  the  wars  of  races  rise  porten- 
tous, which  will  touch  to  purposes  yet  higher  and 
more  mystic  the  wars  of  empires  —  as  these  have 
greatened  the  wars  of  nationalities,  these  again  the 
wars  of  feudal  kings,  of  principalities,  of  cities,  of 
tribes  or  clans. 

Secondly,  this  ideal  of  Imperial  Britain  will 
greaten  and  exalt  the  action  of  the  soldier,  hallowing 
the  death  on  the  battlefield  with  the  attributes  at 
once  of  the  hero  and  the  martyr.  Thus,  when 
M.  Bloch  and  similar  writers  delineate  war  as  robbed 
by  modern  inventions  of  its  pomp  and  circumstance, 
when  they  expatiate  upon  the  isolation  resulting 
from  a  battle-line  extended  across  leagues,  and  upon 
the  "  zone  of  death  "  separating  the  opposing  hosts, 
one  asks  in  perplexity,  to  what  end  does  M.  Bloch 
consider  that  war  was  waged  in  the  past  ?  For  the 
sake  of  such  emotional  excitement  or  parade  as  are 
now  by  smokeless  powder,  maxims,  long-range 


156  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

rifles,  and  machine  guns  abolished?  These  are 
but  the  trappings,  the  outward  vesture  of  war;  the 
cause,  the  sacred  cause,  is  by  this  transformation 
in  the  methods  of  war  all  untouched.  Was  there 
then  no  "  zone  of  death "  between  the  armies  at 
Eylau  or  at  Gravelotte?  Let  but  the  cause  be  high, 
and  men  will  find  means  to  cross  that  zone,  now  as 
then  —  by  the  sapper's  art  if  by  no  other!  And  as 
the  pride  and  ostentation  of  battle  are  effaced,  its 
inner  glory  and  dread  sanctity  are  the  more  evinced. 
The  battlefield  is  an  altar;  the  sacrifice  the  most 
awful  that  the  human  eye  can  contemplate  or  the 
imagination  with  all  its  efforts  invent.  "  The 
drum,"  says  a  French  moralist,  "  is  the  music  of 
battle,  because  it  deadens  thought."  But  in  modern 
warfare  the  faculties  are  awake.  Solitude  is  the 
touchstone  of  valour,  and  the  modern  soldier  cast 
in  upon  himself,  undazzled,  unblinded,  faces  death 
singly.  Fighting  for  ideal  ends,  he  dies  for  men 
and  things  that  are  not  yet;  he  dies,  knowing  in 
his  heart  that  they  may  never  be  at  all.  Courage 
and  self-renunciation  have  attained  their  height. 

Nor  have  strategy  and  the  mechanical  appliances 
of  modern  warfare  turned  the  soldier  into  a  machine, 
an  automaton,  devoid  of  will  and  self-directing  en- 
ergy. Contemporary  history  makes  it  daily  clearer 
that  in  modern  battles  brain  and  nerve  count  as 
heavily  as  they  ever  did  in  the  combats  by  the 
Scamander  or  the  Simois.  Another  genius,  and  an- 
other epic  style  than  those  of  Homer  may  be  requi- 


IMPERIALISM  AND  WAR  157 

site  fitly  to  celebrate  them,  but  the  theme  assuredly 
is  not  less  lofty,  the  heroism  less  heroic,  the  triumph 
or  defeat  less  impressive. 

Twice,  and  twirp  nnjy,  is  man  inevil^h]^]^"^  — 

in  the  hour  of  death  and  the  hour  of  his  birth. 
Man,  alone  always,  is  then  supremely  alone.  In 
that  final  solitude  what  are  pomp  and  circumstance 
to  the  heart  ?  That  which  strengthens  a  man  then, 
whether  on  the  battlefield  or  at  the  stake  or  in  life's 
unrecorded  martyrdoms,  is  not  the  cry  of  present 
onlookers  nor  the  hope  of  remembering  fame,  but 
the  faith  for  which  he  has  striven,  or  his  conception 
of  the  purposes,  the  ends  in  which  the  nation  for 
which  he  is  dying,  lives  and  moves  and  has  its  being. 
Made  strong  by  this,  he  endures  the  ordeal,  the 
hazard  of  death,  in  the  full  splendour  of  the  war, 
or  at  its  sullen,  dragging  close,  or  in  the  battle's 
onset,  or  on  patrol,  the  test  of  the  dauntless,  surren- 
dering the  sight  of  the  sun,  the  coming  of  spring,  and 
all  that  the  arts  and  various  wisdom  of  the  centuries 
have  added  of  charm  or  depth  to  nature's  day.  And 
in  the  great  hour,  whatever  his  past  hours  have 
been,  consecrate  to  duty  or  to  ease,  to  the  loftiest 
or  to  the  least-erected  aims,  whether  he  is  borne  on 
triumphant  to  the  dread  pause,  the  vigil  which  is 
the  night  after  a  battle,  or  falling  he  sinks  by  a  fatal 
touch,  and  the  noise  of  victory  is  hushed  in  the  com- 
ing of  the  great  silence,  and  the  darkness  swoons 
around  him,  and  the  cry  "  Press  on ! "  stirs  no 
pulsation  any  longer  —  in  that  great  hour  he  is 


158  WHAT  IS  WAR? 

lifted  to  the  heights  of  the  highest,  the  prophet's 
rapt  vision,  the  poet's  moment  of  serenest  inspira- 
tion, or  what  else  magnifies  or  makes  approximate 
to  the  Divine  this  mortal  life  of  ours. 

War  thus  greatened  in  character  by  its  ideal,  the 
phrase  of  the  Greek  orator,  let  me  repeat,  is  no 
longer  an  empty  sound,  but  vibrates  with  its  original 
life  — "  How  fortunate  the  dead  who  have  fallen  in 
battle!  And  how  fortunate  are  you  to  whom  sor- 
row comes  in  so  glorious  a  shape ! "  An  added 
solemnity  invests  the  resolutions  of  senates,  and 
the  prayer  on  the  battlefield,  "  Through  death  to 
life/'  acquires  a  sincerity  more  moving  and  a  sim- 
plicity more  heroic.  And  these,  I  imagine,  will  be 
the  results  of  Imperialism  and  of  this  deepening 
consciousness  of  its  destiny  in  Imperial  Britain, 
whether  in  war  which  is  the  act  of  the  State  as  a 
whole,  or  in  the  career  of  the  soldier  which  receives 
its  consummation  there  in  the  death  on  the  battle- 
field. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  VICISSITUDES   OF   STATES   AND   EMPIRES 

HAVING  considered  in  the  first  lecture  a  definition 
of  Imperialism,  and  traced  in  the  second  and  third 
the  development  in  religion  and  in  politics  of  the 
ideal  of  Imperial  Britain,  and  having  afterwards 
examined  the  relations  of  this  ideal  to  the  supreme 
questions  of  War  and  Peace,  an  inquiry  not  less 
momentous,  but  from  its  intangible  and  even  mystic 
character  less  capable  of  definite  resolution,  now  de- 
mands attention.  How  is  this  ideal  of  the  Imper- 
ialistic State  related  to  that  from  which  all  States 
originally  derive  ?  How  is  it  related  to  the  Divine  ? 
From  the  consideration  of  this  problem  two  others 
arise,  that  of  the  vicissitudes  of  States  and  Empires, 
and  that  of  the  destiny  of  this  Empire  of  Imperial 
Britain. 

From  the  analogy  of  the  Past  is  it  possible  to 
apprehend  even  dimly  the  curve  which  this  Empire, 
moved  by  a  new  ideal,  and  impelled  by  the  deepening 
consciousness  of  its  destiny,  will  describe  amongst 
the  nations  and  the  peoples  of  the  earth? 

Empire,  we  have  seen,  is  the  highest  expression 
of  the  soul  of  the  State;  it  is  the  complete,  the  final 
consummation  of  the  life  of  the  State.  But  the 

159 


160  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

State,  the  soul  of  the  State,  is  in  itself  but  a  unity 
that  is  created  from  the  units,  the  individuals  which 
!  compose  it.  Nevertheless  the  unity  of  the  State 
which  results  from  those  units  is  not  the  same  unity, 
nor  is  it  subject  to,  or  governed  by,  the  same  laws 
as  regulate  the  life  of  the  individual.  Not  only  the 
arraignment  of  the  maxims  of  statesmen  as  immoral, 
but  the  theories,  fantastic  or  profound,  of  the  rise 
and  fall  of  States,  are  marred  or  rendered  idle  ut- 
terly by  the  initial  confusion  of  the  organic  unity 
of  the  State  with  the  unity  of  the  individual.  But 
though  no  composite  unity  is  governed  by  the  same 
laws  as  govern  its  constituent  atoms,  nevertheless 
that  unity  must  partake  of  the  nature  of  its  con- 
stituent atoms,  change  as  they  change,  mutually 
transforming  and  transformed.  So  is  this  unity  of 
the  State  influenced  by  the  units  which  compose  it, 
which  are  the  souls  of  men. 

§  I.       THE   METAPHYSICAL   ORIGIN    OF   THE   STATE 

Consider  then,  first  of  all,  in  relation  to  the  con- 
sciousness which  is  the  attribute  of  the  life  of  the 
State,  the  consciousness  which  is  the  soul  of  man. 
In  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries,  as  we  have 
seen,  the  saintly  ideal  which  had  hitherto  controlled 
man's  life  dies  to  the  higher  thought  of  Europe. 
The  saint  gives  place  to  the  crusader  and  scholastic, 
and  the  imagination  of  the  time  acknowledges  the 
spell  of  oriental  paganism  and  oriental  culture. 

Certain  of  the  most  remarkable  minds  of  that 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  STATE  161 

epoch,  men  like  Berengarius  of  Tours,  for  instance, 
or  St.  Victor,  and  Amalrich,  are  profoundly  troubled 
by  a  problem  of  the  following  nature.  How  shall 
the  justice  of  God  be  reconciled  with  the  destiny  He 
assigns  to  the  souls  of  men?  They  are  sent  forth 
from  their  rest  in  the  Divine  to  dwell  in  habitations 
of  mortal  flesh,  incurring  reprobation  and  exile  ever- 
lasting, or  after  a  season  returning,  according  as 
they  are  appointed  to  a  life  dark  to  the  sacrifice  on 
Calvary,  or  to  a  life  by  that  Blood  redeemed.  By 
what  law  or  criterion  of  right  does  God  send  forth 
those  souls,  emanations  of  His  divinity,  to  a  doom 
of  misery  or  bliss,  according  as  they  are  attached  to 
a  body  north  of  the  Mediterranean,  or  southward 
of  that  sea,  within  the  sway  of  the  falsest  of  false 
prophets,  Mohammed?  This  trouble  in  the  heart 
of  the  eleventh  century  arose  from  the  insight  which 
compassion  gives;  the  European  imagination,  at 
rest  with  regard  to  its  own  safety,  is  for  the  first 
time  perplexed  by  the  fate  of  men  of  an  alien  race 
and  faith,  whose  heroism  it  has  nevertheless  learnt 
to  revere,  as  in  after-times  it  was  perplexed  in  pon- 
dering the  fate  of  Greece  and  Rome,  whose  art  and 
thought  it  vainly  strove  to  imitate.  Underlying  this 
trouble  in  their  hearts  is  the  assumption  to  which 
Plato  and  certain  of  his  sect  have  leanings,  that 
within  the  Divine  there  is  as  it  were  a  treasury  of 
souls  from  which  individual  essences  are  sped  hither, 
to  dwell  within  each  mortal  body  immediately  on  its 
birth. 


1 62  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

Now  in  an  earlier  age  than  the  age  of  Berengarius 
and  St.  Victor,  there  arose  within  Alexandria  one 
whose  thought  in  its  range,  in  the  sweep  of  its  orbit, 
was  perhaps  the  widest  and  most  distant  amongst 
the  children  of  men.  In  the  most  remarkable  and 
sublime  of  his  six  Enneads,  another  theory  upon  the 
same  subject  occurs.41  The  fate  of  the  soul  in  pass- 
ing from  its  home  with  the  Everlasting  is  like  the 
fate  of  a  child  which  in  infancy  has  been  removed 
from  its  parents  and  reared  in  a  foreign  land.  The 
child  forgets  its  country  and  its  kindred  as  the  soul 
forgets  in  the  joy  of  its  freedom  the  felicity  it  knew 
when  one  with  the  Divine.  But  after  the  lapse  of 
years  if  the  child  return  amongst  its  kindred,  at  first 
indeed  it  shall  not  know  them,  but  now  a  word,  now 
a  gesture,  or  again  a  trick  of  the  hand,  a  cadence 
of  the  voice,  will  come  to  it  like  the  murmur  of  for- 
gotten seas  by  whose  shores  it  once  had  dwelt,  awak- 
ing within  it  strange  memories,  and  gradually  by 
the  accumulation  of  these  the  truth  will  at  last  flash 
in  upon  the  child  — "  Behold  my  father  and  my 
brethren!"  So  the  soul  of  man,  though  knowing 
not  whence  it  came,  is  by  the  teachings  of  Divine 
wisdom,  and  by  inspired  thinkers,  quickened  to  a 
remembrance  of  its  heavenly  origin,  and  its  life 
henceforth  becomes  an  ever-increasing,  ever  more 
vivid  memory  of  the  tranced  peace,  the  bliss  that 
it  knew  there  within  the  Everlasting. 

41  See  Volkmann's  edition  of  Plotinus,  the  sole  attempt  at  a 
critical  text  worthy  of  the  name  that  has  yet  been  made. 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  STATE  163 

Let  me  attempt  to  apply  this  thought  of  the 
Egyptian  mystic  to  the  problem  before  us.  Disre- 
garding the  theory  of  an  infinite  series  of  successive 
incarnations  from  the  inexhaustible  treasury  of  the 
Divine,  permit  me  to  recall  the  observations  made 
in  an  earlier  lecture  on  the  contrast  between  the 
limited  range  of  man's  consciousness,  and  the  meas- 
ureless past  stretching  behind  him,  the  infinite  spaces 
around  him. 

Judged  by  the  perfect  ideal  of  knowledge,  the  uni- 
verse is  necessary  to  the  understanding  of  a  flower, 
and  the  dateless  past  to  the  intelligence  of  the  his- 
tory of  a  day.  But  as  the  beam  of  light  never  severs 
itself  from  its  fountain,  as  the  faintest  ray  that  falls 
within  the  caverns  of  the  sea  remains  united  with 
the  orb  whence  it  sprang,  so  the  soul  of  man  has 
grown  old  along  with  nature,  and  acquainted  from 
its  foundations  with  the  fabric  of  the  universe. 

Therefore  when  it  confronts  some  simple  object 
of  sense  or  emotion,  or  the  more  intricate  move- 
ments and  events  of  history,  or  the  rushing  storm 
of  the  present,  the  soul  has  about  it  strange  inti- 
macies, it  has  within  it  preparations  drawn  from 
that  fellowship  with  nature  throughout  the  aeons, 
the  abysses  of  Eternity.  And  as  the  aeons  advance, 
the  soul  grows  ever  more  conscious  of  the  end  of  all 
its  striving,  and  its  serenity  deepens  as  the  certainty 
of  the  ultimate  attainment  of  that  end  increases. 

Baulked  of  its  knowledge  of  an  hour  by  its  igno- 
rance of  Eternity,  it  attains  its  rest  in  the  Infinite, 


164  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

which  seeking  it  shall  find,  piercing  through  every 
moment  of  the  transient  to  the  Eternal.  What  are 
the  spaces  and  the  labyrinthian  dance  of  the  worlds 
to  the  soul  which  is  ever  more  profoundly  absorbed, 
remembering,  knowing,  or  in  vision  made  prescient 
of  its  identity  with  the  soul  of  the  universe?  And 
as  the  ages  recede,  the  immanence  of  the  Divine  be- 
comes more  consciously,  more  pervadingly  present. 
Earth  deepens  in  mystery;  premonitions  of  its  des- 
tiny visit  the  soul,  falling  manifold  as  the  shadows 
of  twilight,  or  in  mysterious  tones  far-borne  and 
deep  as  the  chords  struck  by  the  sweeping  orbs  in 
space. 

The  soul  thus  neglects  the  finite  save  as  an  avenue 
to  the  infinite,  and  holds  knowledge  in  light  esteem 
unless  as  a  path  to  the  wonder,  the  ecstasy,  and  the 
wisdom  which  are  beyond  knowledge.  The  past  is 
dead,  the  present  is  a  dream,  the  future  is  not  yet, 
but  in  the  Eternal  NOW  the  soul  is  one  with  that 
Reality  of  which  the  remotest  pasts,  the  farthest 
presents,  the  most  distant  futures,  are  but  changing 
phases. 

If  then  we  regard  the  soul,  its  origin  and  its  des- 
tiny, in  this  manner,  what  a  wonder  of  light  in- 
vests its  history  within  Time!  Banished  from  its 
primal  abode  beyond  the  crystal  walls  of  space,  with 
what  achievements  has  not  the  exile  graced  the  earth, 
its  habitation!  Wondrous  indeed  is  man's  course 
across  the  earth,  and  with  what  shall  the  works  of 
his  soul  be  compared?  From  those  first  uncer- 


ORIGIN  OF  THE  STATE  165 

tainties,  those  faltering  elations,  the  Vision,  dimly 
discerned  as  yet,  lures  him  with  tremulous  ecstasies 
to  eternise  the  fleeting,  and  in  columned  enclosure 
and  fretted  canopy  to  uprear  an  image  which  he  can 
control  of  the  arch  of  heaven  and  the  unsustained 
architecture  of  the  stars.  These  outreach  his  mortal 
grasp,  outwearying  his  scrutiny,  blinding  his  intelli- 
gence; but,  master  of  the  image,  his  soul  knows 
again  by  reflection  the  felicity  which  it  knew  when 
one  with  the  Shaper  of  the  worlds. 

And  thu's  the  soul  mounts,  steep  above  steep,  from 
the  rudely  hewn  granite  to  the  breathing  marbles  of 
the  Parthenon,  to  the  hues  of  Titian,  to  the  forests 
in  stone,  the  domes  and  minarets,  and  the  gemmed 
splendour  of  later  races,  to  the  drifted  snows  of  the 
Taj -Mahal,  iridescent  with  diamond  and  pearl. 

Yea,  from  those  first  imaginings,  caught  from  the 
brooding  rocks,  and  moulded  in  the  substance  of 
the  rocks,  still  it  climbs,  instructed  by  the  winds, 
the  ocean's  tidal  rhythm,  and  the  tumultuous  trans- 
ports of  the  human  voice,  its  raptures,  sorrows,  or 
despairs,  to  the  newer  wonder,  the  numbered 
cadences  of  poetry,  the  verse  of  Homer,  Sophocles, 
and  Shakespeare. 

And  at  the  last,  lessoned  by  those  ancient  instruc- 
tors, winds  and  tides,  and  the  ever-moving  spheres 
of  heaven,  how  does  the  soul  attain  its  glory,  and 
in  Music,  the  art  of  arts,  the  form  of  forms,  poise 
on  the  starry  battlements  of  God's  dread  sanctuary, 
tranced  in  prayer,  in  wonder  ineffable,  at  the  long 


1 66  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

pilgrimage  accomplished  at  last  —  in  the  adagio  of 
the  great  Concerto,  in  the  Requiem,  or  those  later 
strains  of  transhuman  sadness  and  serenity  trans- 
human,  in  which  the  soul  hears  again  the  song  sung 
by  the  first  star  that  ever  left  the  shaping  hands  of 
God  and  took  its  way  alone  through  the  lonely 
spaces,  pursuing  an  untried  path  across  the  dark, 
the  silent  abysses  —  how  dark,  how  silent !  —  a  mov- 
ing harmony,  foreboding  even  then  in  its  first  sepa- 
rate delight  and  sorrow  of  estrangement  all  the  an- 
guish and  all  the  ecstasy  that  the  unborn  universes  of 
which  it  is  the  herald  and  precursor  yet  shall  know ! 

Aristotle  indeed  affirms  that  in  the  universe  there 
are  many  things  more  excellent  than  man,  the 
planets,  for  instance.  He  is  thinking  of  the  mighty 
yet  perfect  curve  which  they  describe,  though  with 
all  the  keenness  of  his  analytic  perception,  he  is  in 
this  judgment  not  unaffected  by  the  fancy,  current 
in  his  time,  that  those  planets  are  living  things  each 
with  its  attendant  soul,  which  shapes  its  orbit  and 
that  fixed  path  athwart  the  night.  How  much 
higher  a  will  that  steadfast  motion  argues  than  the 
wavering  purposes,  the  unstable  desires  of  human 
life.  But  we  know  that  the  planet  with  all  its 
mighty  curve  is  but  as  the  stage  to  the  piece  enacted 
thereon ;  it  is  the  moving  theatre  on  which  the  drama 
of  life,  from  its  first  dark  unconscious  motions  to  the 
freest  energy  of  the  soul  in  its  airy  imaginings,  is 
accomplished.  And  the  thought  of  Pascal  which 
might  be  a  rejoinder  to  this  of  Aristotle  is  well 


EMPIRES  AND  ART  167 

known,  that  though  the  universe  rise  up  against  man 
to  destroy  him,  yet  man  is  greater  than  the  uni- 
verse, because  he  knows  that  he  dies,  but  of  its 
power  to  destroy  the  universe  knows  nothing. 

If  this  then  be  the  origin  of  the  individual  soul, 
and  if  its  recorded  and  unrecorded  history  and  action 
in  the  universe  be  of  this  height,  it  is  not  astonish- 
ing that  the  laws  and  operations  of  the  soul  of  the 
State,  which  is  of  an  order  yet  more  complex  and 
mysterious,  should  baffle  investigation,  and  foil  the 
most  assiduous  efforts  to  reduce  them  to  a  system, 
and  compel  speculation  to  have  recourse  to  such 
false  analogies  and  misleading  resemblances  as  those 
to  which  reference  has  in  these  lectures  more  than 
once  been  made. 

§  2.       THE   STATE,    EMPIRES,    AND   ART 

Thus  we  trace  the  unity  of  the  State  to  the  unity 
of  the  individual  soul,  and  thence  to  the  Divine 
unity.  The  soul  of  the  State  is  the  higher,  the  more 
complex  unity,  and  it  is  not  merely  in  the  actions 
of  the  individual  in  relation  to  or  as  an  organic  part 
of  the  State  that  we  must  seek  for  the  entire  influ- 
ence of  the  State  upon  individual  life,  or  for  the  per- 
fect expression  of  the  abstract  energy  of  the  State 
in  itself  and  by  itself.  Man  in  such  relations  does 
often  merit  the  reprobation  of  Rousseau,  and  his 
theory  of  the  deteriorating  effects  of  a  complex 
unity  upon  the  single  unity  of  the  individual  soul 
seems  often  to  find  justification.  Similarly,  the  ex- 


1 68  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

elusive  admiration  of  many  unwitting  disciples  of 
Rousseau  for  the  deeds  of  the  individual  as  opposed 
to  the  deeds  of  the  State,  for  art  as  opposed  to  poli- 
tics, discovers  in  a  first  study  of  these  relations 
strong  support.  But  the  artist  is  not  isolated  and 
self-dependent.  If  the  supreme  act  of  a  race  is  war, 
if  its  supreme  thought  is  its  religion,  and  its  su- 
preme poems,  its  language  —  deeds,  thoughts,  and 
poems  to  which  the  whole  race  has  contributed  —  so 
in  manifold,  potent,  if  unperceived  ways  the  State 
affects  those  energisings  in  art  and  thought  which 
seem  most  independent  of  the  State.  The  sen- 
tence of  Aristotle  is  familiar,  "  The  solitary  man  is 
either  a  brute  or  a  god/'  but  the  solitariness  whether 
of  the  Thebaid  or  of  Fonte  Avellano,  of  Romualdo, 
Damiani,  or  of  that  Yogi,  who,  to  exhibit  his  hate 
and  scorn  of  life,  flung  himself  into  the  flames  in 
the  presence  of  Alexander,  is  yet  indebted  and 
bound  by  ties  invisible,  mystic,  innumerable,  to  the 
State,  to  the  race,  for  the  structural  design  of  the 
soul  itself,  for  that  very  pride,  that  isolating  power 
which  seems  most  to  sever  it  from  the  State.42  And 
who  shall  determine  the  limits  of  the  unconscious 

42  Spinoza's  answer  to  the  "  melancholic!  qui  laudant  vitam 
incultem  et  agrestem"  (iv  Prop.  35,  note),  that  men  can  pro- 
vide for  their  needs  better  by  society  than  by  solitude,  hardly 
meets  the  higher  criticism  of  the  State.  Yet  it  anticipates 
Fichte's  retort  to  Rousseau.  Spinoza,  if  this  were  written 
circa  1665,  has  in  view,  perhaps,  the  Trappists,  then  reorgan- 
ised by  Bossuet's  friend,  and  perhaps  also  Port  Royal  aux 
Champs. 


EMPIRES  AND  ART  169 

life  which  in  that  lonely  contemplation  or  that  lone- 
lier scorn,  the  soul  receives  from  the  State?  For 
from  the  same  source  the  component  and  the  com- 
posite, the  constituent  and  the  constituted  unity  alike 
arise,  and  the  Immanence  that  is  in  each  is  One. 
"  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit  ?  or  whither 
shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence?  If  I  ascend  up  into 
heaven,  Thou  art  there:  if  I  make  my  bed  in  hell, 
behold,  Thou  art  there.  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the 
morning,  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the 
sea;  even  there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me,  and  Thy 
right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say,  Surely  the  dark- 
ness shall  cover  me;  even  the  night  shall  be  light 
about  me.  Yea,  the  darkness  hideth  not  from 
Thee;  but  the  night  shineth  as  the  day;  the  dark- 
ness and  the  light  are  both  alike  to  Thee." 

The  everday  topic  which  makes  man  "  the  crea- 
ture of  his  time "  derives  whatever  truth  it  pos- 
sesses from  this  unity,  but  Sophocles  did  not  write 
the  Ajax  because  Miltiades  fought  at  Marathon,  nor 
Tirso,  El  Condennado  because  Cortez  defeated 
Montezuma.  Whatever  law  connect  greatness  in 
art  and  greatness  in  action,  it  is  not  the  law  of  cause 
and  effect,  of  necessary  succession  in  time.  They 
are  the  mutually  dependent  manifestations  of  the 
same  immortal  energy  which  uplifts  the  whole  State, 
whose  motions  arise  from  beyond  Time,  the  roots  of 
whose  being  are  beyond  the  region  of  cause  and  ef- 
fect. 

Consider  now  as  an  illustration  of  the  inter-de- 


1 70  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

pendence  of  the  soul  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
State,  and  of  the  immanence  in  each  of  the  Divine, 
the  relation  which  world-history  reveals  as  existing 
between  the  higher  manifestations  of  the  life  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  State.  The  greatest  achieve- 
ments of  individual  men,  whether  in  action,  or  in 
art,  or  in  thought,  are,  it  will  generally  be  found, 
coincident  with,  and  synchronous  with,  the  highest 
form  which  in  its  development  the  State  assumes, 
that  is,  with  some  form  or  mode  of  empire.  For  it 
is  not  merely  the  art  of  Phidias,  of  Sophocles,  that 
springs  from  the  energy  aroused  by  the  Persian 
invasions;  the  energy  which  finds  expression  in  the 
Empire  of  Athens  is  to  be  traced  thither,  empire  and 
art  arising  from  the  same  exaltation  of  the  State 
and  of  the  individual.  But  they  are  not  related  as 
cause  and  effect,  nor  is  the  art  of  Sophocles  cwsed 
by  Marathon ;  but  the  Agamemnon  and  Salamis,  the 
Parthenon  and  the  Ajax,  are  incarnations  in  words, 
in  deeds,  or  in  marble  of  the  divine  Idea  immanent 
in  the  whole  race  of  the  Hellenes.  A  race  capable 
of  empire,  the  civic  form  of  imperialism,  thus  arises 
simultaneously  with  its  greatest  achievements  in  art. 
Similarly  in  the  civic  State  of  mediaeval  Florence, 
the  age  of  Leonardo  and  of  Savonarola  is  also  the 
age  of  Lorenzo,  when  in  politics  Florence  competes 
with  Venice  and  the  Borgias  for  the  hegemony  of 
Italy,  and  the  actual  bounds  of  her  civic  empire  are 
at  their  widest.  So  in  Venetian  history  empire  and 
art  reach  their  height  together,  and  the  age  which 


EMPIRES  AND  ART  171 

succeeds  that  of  Giorgione  and  of  Titian  is  an  end 
not  only  to  the  painting  but  to  the  political  greatness 
of  Venice. 

As  in  civic  so  in  national  empires.  In  Spain, 
Charles  V  and  the  Philips  are  the  tyrants  of  the 
greatest  single  military  power  and  of  the  first  na- 
tion of  the  earth,  and  have  as  their  subjects  Rojas 
and  Tirso,  Lope  and  Cervantes,  Calderon  and 
Velasquez.  Racine  and  Moliere  serve  le  grand 
Monarque,  as  Apelles  served  Alexander.  The  mari- 
ners who  sketched  the  bounds  of  this  empire,  which 
is  at  last  attaining  to  the  full  consciousness  of  its 
mighty  destinies,  were  the  contemporaries  of  Mar- 
lowe and  Webster,  of  Beaumont  and  Ford. 

Napoleon's  fretful  impatience  that  his  victories 
should  have  as  their  literary  accompaniments  only 
the  wan  tragedies  of  Joseph  Chenier  and  the  un- 
leavened odes  of  Millevoye  was  just.  An  empire  so 
glorious,  if  based  on  the  people's  will,  should  not 
have  found  in  the  genius  of  the  age  its  sworn  antag- 
onist. This  stamped  his  empire  as  spurious. 

But  these  simultaneous  phenomena,  these  supreme 
attainments  at  once  in  action  and  in  art,  are  not 
connected  as  cause  and  effect.  For  the  roots  of  their 
identity  we  must  search  deeper.  The  transcendent 
deed  and  the  work  of  art  alike  have  their  origin  in 
the  elan  of  the  soul,  the  diviner  vision  or  the  diviner 
desire.  The  will  which  becomes  the  deed,  the  vision 
which  becomes  the  poem  or  the  picture,  are  here  as 
yet  one ;  and  this  elan.,  this  energy  of  the  soul,  what 


172  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

is  it  but  the  energy  of  the  infinite  within  the  finite, 
of  the  eternal  within  time  ?  Art  in  whatever  perfec- 
tion it  attains  is  but  an  illustration,  imperfect,  of  the 
spirit  of  man.  The  greatest  books  that  ever  were 
written,  the  most  exquisite  sculptures  that  ever  were 
carved,  the  most  delicate  temples  that  ever  were 
reared,  the  richest  paintings  that  ever  came  from 
Titian  are  all  in  themselves  ultimately  but  the  dust 
of  the  soul  of  him  who  composes  them,  builds  them, 
carves  them.  The  unrevealed  and  the  unrevealable 
is  the  soul  itself  that  in  such  works  is  dimly  adum- 
brated. The  most  perfect  statue  is  but  an  imperfect 
semblance  of  the  beauty  which  the  sculptor  beheld, 
though  intensifying  and  reacting  upon,  and  even  in  a 
sense  consummating,  that  inward  vision;  and  the 
sublimest  energy  of  imperial  Rome  derives  its  tragic 
height  from  the  degree  to  which  it  realises  the 
energy  of  the  race. 

In  the  Islam  of  Omar  this  law  displays  itself  su- 
premely, and  with  a  flame-like  vividness.  There  the 
divine  origin  of  the  State  which  in  the  Athens  of 
Pericles  is  hidden  or  revealed  in  the  myriad  forms 
of  art,  plastic  or  poetic,  in  the  Rome  of  Sulla  or 
Caesar  in  tragic  action,  displays  itself  in  naked  purity 
and  in  majesty  unadorned.  If  artistic  loveliness 
marks  the  age  of  Sophocles,  tragic  grandeur  the 
Rome  of  Augustus,  mystic  sublimity  is  the  feature 
of  the  Islam  of  Omar.  The  thought  and  the  deed, 
K<U  71-01770-19,  here  are  one. 


THE  THEORY  OF  RETRIBUTION      173 

§  3.      THE     FALL     OF     EMPIRES  I     THE     THEORY     OF 
RETRIBUTION 

We  have  now  reached  the  final  stage  of  our  in- 
quiry. Is  there  any  law  by  which  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  States,  whose  origin  has  been  traced  through 
the  individual  to  a  remoter  and  more  awful  source, 
are  fixed*  and  directed?  And  can  the  decay  of  em- 
pires, those  supreme  forms  in  the  development  of 
States,  be  resolved  into  its  determining  causes,  or 
do  we  here  confront  a  movement  which  is  beyond 
the  sphere  ruled  by  cause  and  effect? 

In  Western  Europe  a  broken  arch  and  some  frag- 
ments of  stone  are  often  all  that  mark  the  place 
where  stood  some  perfect  achievement  of  mediaeval 
architecture,  a  feudal  stronghold  or  an  abbey.  But 
on  the  lower  plains  of  the  Euphrates  and  Tigris,  a 
ruin  hardly  more  conspicuous  may  denote  the  seat  of 
an  empire.  Such  a  region,  fronting  the  desert, 
formed  a  fit  theatre  for  man's  first  speculations  upon 
his  own  destiny  and  that  of  the  nations.  Those  two 
inquiries  have  proceeded  together.  His  vision  of 
the  universe,  original  or  accepted,  inevitably  shapes 
and  transforms  the  poet's,  the  prophet's,  or  the  his- 
torian's vision  of  any  portion  of  that  universe,  how- 
ever limited  in  time  and  space. 

Hebrew  literature,  affected  by  the  revolutions  of 
Assyria,  Chaldsea,  Media,  and  Egypt,  already  dis- 
closes two  theories  which,  modified  or  applied,  mould 
man's  thought  when  bent  to  this  problem  down  to 


174  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

the  present  hour.  Round  one  or  other  of  these 
conceptions  the  speculations  of  over  two  thousand 
years  naturally  group  themselves. 

The  first  of  these  theories,  which  may  be  styled 
the  Theory  of  Retribution,  attributes  the  decay  of 
empires  to  the  visitation  of  a  divine  vengeance. 
The  fall  of  an  empire  is  the  punishment  of  sin  and 
of  wrong  doing.  The  pride  and  iniquity  of  the  few, 
or  the  corruption  and  ethical  degeneration  of  the 
mass,  involves  the  ruin  of  the  State.  Regardless  of 
the  contradictions  to  this  law  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual, its  supremacy  in  the  life  of  empires  has 
throughout  man's  history  been  decreed  and  pro- 
claimed. Hebrew  thought  was  perplexed  and 
amazed  from  the  remotest  periods  at  the  felicity  of 
the  oppressor  and  the  unjust  man,  and  the  misery  of 
the  good.  But  the  sublime  and  inspired  rhetoric 
of  Isaiah  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  the  punish- 
ment of  wrong,  uncertain  amongst  men,  is  sure 
amongst  nations  and  States. 

In  a  more  ethical  form  this  conception  is  easily 
traced  throughout  Greek  and  Roman  thought.  In 
St.  Augustine  it  reappears  in  its  original  shape,  and 
invested  with  the  dignity,  the  fulness,  and  the  pre- 
cision of  an  historical  argument.  A  Roman  by 
birth,  culture,  and  youthful  sympathies,  loving  the 
sad  cadences  of  Virgil  like  a  passion,  admitted  by 
Cicero  to  an  intimacy  with  Hellenic  thought,  he  is, 
later  in  life,  attracted,  fascinated,  and  finally  sub- 
dued by  the  ideal  of  the  Nazarene,  and  by  the  poetry 


THE  THEORY  OF  RETRIBUTION      175 

and  history  behind  it.  He  sees  Rome  fall;  and 
what  the  fate  of  Babylon  was  to  the  Hebrew  prophet 
the  fate  of  Rome  becomes  to  Augustinus  —  the  sym- 
bol of  divine  wrath,  the  punishment  of  her  pride,  her 
idolatry,  and  her  sin.  Rome  falls  as  Babylon,  as 
Assyria  fell ;  but  in  the  De  Ciwtate,  to  which  he  de- 
votes some  fifteen  years  of  his  life,  is  delineated  the 
city  which  shall  not  pass  away.43  The  destruction 
of  Rome,  limited  in  time  and  space,  coalesces  with 
the  wider  thought  of  the  Stoics,  the  destruction  of 
the  world. 

So  to  the  Middle  Age  the  fall  of  Rome  was  but 
an  argument  for  the  theme  of  the  passing  away  of 
earth  itself  and  all  earthly  things  like  a  scroll.  Be- 
fore its  imagination,  as  along  a  highroad,  moved  a 
procession  of  empires  —  Assyria,  Media,  Babylon, 

43  The  writings  of  St.  Augustine  by  their  extraordinary  vari- 
ety, vast  intellectual  range,  and  the  impression  of  a  distinct 
personal  utterance  which  flows  from  every  page  at  which  they 
are  opened,  exercise  upon  the  imagination  an  effect  like  that 
which  the  works  of  Diderot  or  Goethe  alone  of  moderns  have 
the  power  to  reproduce.  The  De  Civitate  is  his  greatest  and 
most  sustained  effort,  and  though  controversial  in  intention 
it  reaches  again  and  again  an  epic  sublimity  both  in  imagery 
and  diction.  The  peoples  and  empires  of  the  world  are  the 
heroes,  and  the  part  which  Augustine  assigns  to  the  God  of 
all  the  earth  has  curious  reminiscences  of  the  parts  played  by 
the  deities  in  pagan  poetry.  Over  the  style  the  influence  of 
Virgil  is  supreme.  Criticism  indeed  offers  few  more  alluring 
tasks  than  the  attempt  to  gauge  the  comparative  effects  of  the 
Virgilian  cadences  upon  the  styles  of  the  men  of  after  times 
who  loved  them  most  — Tacitus  and  St.  Augustine,  Dante, 
Racine,  and  Flaubert. 


176  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

Greece,  Rome,  Persia,  and  at  the  last,  as  a  shadowy 
dream  of  all  these,  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne  and 
of  the  Othos.  Their  successive  falls  point  to  man's 
obstinacy  in  sin,  and  the  recurrence  of  the  event  to 
the  nearness  of  the  Judgment. 

The  treatises  of  Damiani,  Otho  of  Freisingen,44 
and  of  the  Cardinal  Lothar,  formulate  the  argu- 
ment, and  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century  Bossuet 
dedicates  to  this  same  theme  an  eloquence  not  less 
impressive  and  finished  than  that  of  Augustine  him- 
self. In  recent  times  this  theory  influences  strongly 
the  historical  conceptions  of  Ruskin  and  Carlyle. 
It  is  the  informing  thought  of  Ruskin's  greatest 
work,  The  Stones  of  Venice.  The  value  cf  that 
work  is  imperishable,  because  the  documents  upon 
which  it  is  based  are  by  the  wasting  force  of  wind 
and  sun  and  sea  daily  passing  beyond  scrutiny  or 
comparison.  Yet  its  philosophy  is  but  an  echo  of 
the  philosophy  of  Carlyle' s  second  period,  and  as 

44  The  World-History  of  Otho  of  Freisingen  was  modelled 
upon  the  De  Civitate  of  St.  Augustine.  He  styles  it  the 
"  Book  of  the  Two  Cities,"  i.e.,  Babylon  and  Jerusalem,  and 
sketches  from  the  mediaeval  standpoint  the  course  of  human 
life  from  the  origin  of  the  world  to  the  year  A.  D.  1146.  His 
work  on  the  Apocalypse  and  his  impression  of  the  Last  Judg- 
ment are  a  fitting  close  to  the  whole.  He  is  uncritical  in  the 
use  of  his  materials,  but  conveys  a  distinct  impression  of  his 
habits  of  thought;  and  something  of  the  brooding  calm  of  a 
mediaeval  monastery  invests  the  work.  In  the  following  year 
he  started  on  the  crusade  of  Konrad  III,  his  half-brother ;  but 
returning  in  safety,  wrote  his  admirable  annals  of  the  early 
deeds  of  the  hero  of  the  age,  the  emperor  Barbarossa. 


THE  THEORY  OF  RETRIBUTION      177 

ever,  the  disciple  exaggerates  the  teachings  of  the 
master.  The  bent  of  Carlyle's  genius  was  nearer 
that  of  Rousseau  than  he  ever  permitted  himself 
to  imagine.  In  the  Cromwelliad  Carlyle  elaborates 
the  fancy  that  the  one  great  and  heroic  period  of 
English  history  is  that  of  Cromwell,  and  that  in  a 
return  to  the  principles  of  that  era  lies  the  salvation 
of  England.  Similarly  Ruskin  allots  to  Venice  its 
great  and  heroic  period,  ascribing  that  greatness  to 
the  fidelity  of  the  people  of  Venice  to  the  standard 
of  St.  Mark  and  the  ideal  of  Christianism  of  which 
that  standard  was  the  emblem.  But  in  the  six- 
teenth century  Venice  swerved  from  this  ideal,  and 
her  fall  is  the  consequence. 

In  all  such  speculations  a  method  has  been  applied 
to  the  State  identical  with  that  indicated  in  the  sec- 
ond chapter.  They  exhibit  the  effort  of  the  human 
mind  to  discover  in  the  universe  the  evolution  of  a 
design  in  harmony  with  its  own  conception  of  what 
individual  life  is  or  ought  to  be.  Genius,  beauty, 
virtue,  the  breast  consecrated  to  lofty  aims,  are  still 
the  dearest  target  to  disaster,  and  to  the  blind  as- 
saults of  fate  and  man.  In  individual  life,  there- 
fore, the  primitive  conception  has  been  modified, 
but  in  the  wider  and  more  intricate  life  of  a  State 
the  endless  variety  of  incidents,  characters,  fortunes, 
the  succession  of  centuries,  and  of  modes  of  thought, 
literatures,  arts,  creeds,  the  revolutions  in  political 
ideals,  offer  so  complex  a  mass  of  phenomena  that 
the  breakdown  of  the  theory,  patent  at  once  in  the 


178  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

narrower  sphere  of  observation,  is  here  obscured 
and  shielded  from  detection.  Man's  intellect  is 
easily  the  dupe  of  the  heart's  desire,  and  in  the  brief 
span  of  human  life  willingly  carries  a  fiction  to  the 
grave.  And  he  who  defends  a  pleasing  dream  is 
necessarily  honoured  amongst  men  more  than  the 
visionary  whose  course  is  towards  the  glacier  heights 
and  the  icy  solitudes  of  thought. 

§4.       THE   FALL  OF   EMPIRES  I   THE   CYCLIC  THEORY 

The  second  theory  is  that  of  a  cycle  in  human 
affairs,  which  controls  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires 
by  a  law  similar  to  that  of  the  seasons  and  the 
revolutions  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  This  theory 
varies  little;  the  metaphors,  the  figures  by  which 
it  is  darkened  or  made  clearer  change,  but  the  essen- 
tial idea  remains  one  in  the  great  myth  of  Plato  or 
in  the  Indian  epics,  in  the  rigid  steel-clasped  system 
of  Vico,  or  in  the  sentimental  musings  of  Volney. 
The  vicissitudes  are  no  more  determined  by  the  neg- 
lect or  performance  of  religious  rites  or  certain 
ethical  rules.  Man's  life  is  regarded  as  part  of  the 
universal  scheme  of  things,  and  the  fate  of  empires 
as  subject  to  natural  laws.  The  mode  in  which  this 
theory  originates  thus  connects  itself  at  once  with 
the  mode  of  the  Chaldaean  astrology  and  modern 
evolution. 

It  appears  late  in  the  development  of  Hebrew 
thought,  and  finds  its  most  remarkable  expression 
in  the  fragment,  the  writer  of  which  is  now  not  un- 


THE  CYCLIC  THEORY  179 

frequently  spoken  of  as  "  Khoeleth."  45  "  One  gen- 
eration passeth  away  and  another  generation 
cometh;  but  the  earth  abideth  for  ever.  The  sun 
also  riseth,  and  the  sun  goeth  down,  and  hasteth  to 
his  place,  where  he  arose.  The  wind  goeth  towards 
the  south  and  turneth  about  unto  the  north,  it 
whirleth  about  continually,  and  the  wind  returneth 
again  according  to  his  circuits.  The  thing  that  hath 
been,  it  is  that  which  shall  be;  and  that  which  is 
done,  is  that  which  shall  be  done,  and  there  is  no 
new  thing  under  the  sun.  Is  there  anything  whereof 
it  may  be  said,  See,  this  is  new  ?  it  hath  been  already 
of  old  time,  which  was  before  us.  There  is  no  re- 
membrance of  former  things ;  neither  shall  there  be 
any  remembrance  of  things  that  are  to  come  with 
those  that  shall  come  after." 

The  writings  of  Machiavelli  reveal  a  mind  based 
on"  the  same  deeps  as  Khoeleth,  brooding  on  the 
same  world-wide  things.  Like  him,  he  looks  out 
into  the  black  and  eyeless  storm,  the  ceaseless  drift 
of  atoms;  like  him,  he  surveys  the  States  and  Em- 
pires of  the  past,  and  sees  in  their  history,  their 
revolutions,  their  rise  and  decline,  but  the  history 
of  the  wind  which,  in  the  Hebrew  phrase,  goes 
circling  in  its  circles,  sovav  sovev,  and  returneth  to 

45  The  origin,  the  meaning,  the  number,  and  even  the  gender 
of  this  word  have  all  been  disputed.  Thus  the  use  of  the 
original  is  'convenient  as  it  avoids  committal  to  any  one  of  the 
numerous  theories  of  theologians  or  Hebraists.  Delitzsch  has 
sifted  the  evidence  with  scrupulous  care  and  impartiality, 
whilst  Renan's  monograph  possesses  both  erudition  and  charm. 


i8o  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

the  place  whence  it  came,  and  universal  darkness 
awaits  the  world,  and  oblivion  universal  the  tedious 
story  of  man.  In  work  after  work  of  Machiavelli, 
letters,  tales,  dramas,  historical  and  political  treat- 
ises, this  conception  recurs.  It  is  the  central  and 
informing  thought  of  his  life  as  a  philosophical 
thinker.  But  unlike  Vico,  Machiavelli  avoids  be- 
coming the  slave  of  a  theory.  He  shadows  forth 
this  system  of  some  dim  cycle  in  human  affairs  as 
a  conception  in  which  his  own  mind  finds  quiescence, 
if  not  rest.  Its  precise  character  he  nowhere  de- 
scribes. 

Amongst  philosophical  historians  Tacitus  occupies 
a  unique  position.  He  rivals  Dante  in  the  cumula- 
tive effect  of  sombre  detail  and  in  the  gloomy  energy 
which  hate  supplies.  In  depth  and  variety  of  cre- 
ative insight  he  approaches  Balzac,46  whilst  in  his 
peculiar  province,  the  psychology  of  death,  he  stands 
alone.  His  is  the  most  profoundly  imaginative  na- 
ture that  Rome  produced.  Three  centuries  before 
the  fall  of  Rome  he  appears  to  apprehend  or  to  for- 
bode  that  event,  and  he  turns  to  a  consideration  of 

46  What  figures  from  the  Comedie  Humaine  of  Roman  soci- 
ety of  the  first  century  throng  the  pages  of  Tacitus  —  Sejanus, 
Arruntius,  Piso,  Otho,  Bassus,  Caecina,  Tigellinus,  Lucanus, 
Petronius,  Seneca,  Corbulo,  Burrus,  Silius,  Drusus,  Pallas, 
and  Narcissus;  and  those  tragic  women  of  the  Annals  —  im- 
perious, recklessly  daring,  beautiful  or  loyal  —  Livia,  Messa- 
lina,  Vipsania,  the  two  Agrippinas,  mothers  of  Caligula  and  of 
Nero,  Urgulania,  Sabina  Poppcea,  Epicharis,  Lollia  Paulina, 
Lepida,  Calpurnia,  Pontia,  Servilia,  and  Acte ! 


THE  CYCLIC  THEORY  181 

the  customs  of  the  Teutonic  race  as  if  already  in 
the  first  century  he  discerned  the  very  manner  of 
the  cataclysm  of  the  fourth.  Both  his  great  works, 
the  Histories  and  the  Annals,  read  at  moments  like 
variations  and  developments  of  the  same  tragic 
theme,  the  "  wrath  of  the  gods  against  Rome,"  the 
deum  ira  in  rem  Romanam  of  the  Annals;  whilst 
in  the  Histories  the  theory  of  retribution  appears  in 
the  reflection,  non  esse  curae  dels  securitatem  nos- 
tram,  esse  uliionem,  with  which  he  closes  his  pre- 
liminary survey  of  the  havoc  and  civil  fury  of  the 
time  of  Galba — "Not  our  preservation,  but  their 
own  vengeance,  do  the  gods  desire."  It  is  as  if, 
transported  in  imagination  far  into  the  future, 
Tacitus  looked  back  and  pronounced  the  judgment 
of  Rome  in  a  spirit  not  dissimilar  from  that  of  Saint 
Augustine.  Yet  the  Rome  of  Trajan  and  of  the 
Antonines,  of  Severus  and  of  Aurelian,  was  to  come, 
and,  as  if  distrusting  his  rancour  and  the  wounded 
pride  of  an  oligarch,  Tacitus  betrays  in  other  pass- 
ages habits  of  thought  and  speculation  of  a  widely 
different  bearing.  His  sympathies  with  the  Stoic 
sect  were  instinctive,  but  in  his  reserve  and  deep 
reticence  he  resembles,  not  Seneca,  but  Machiavelli 
or  Thucydides. 

A  passage  in  the  Annals  may  fitly  represent  the 
impression  of  reserve  which  these  three  mighty 
spirits,  Tacitus,  Thucydides,  and  Machiavelli,  at  mo- 
ments convey.  "  Sed  mihi  haec  ac  talia  audienti  in 
incerto  judicium  est,  f atone  res  mortalium  et  necessi- 


1 82  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

tate  immutabili  an  forte  volvantur;  quippe  sapien- 
tissimos  veterum,  quique  sectam  eorum  aemulantur, 
diversos  reperias,  ac  multis  insitam  opinionem  non 
initia  nostri,  non  finem,  non  denique  homines  dis 
curae;  ideo  creberrime  tristia  in  bonos,  laeta  apud 
deteriores  esse ;  contra  alii  f atum  quidem  congruere 
rebus  putant,  sed  non  e  vagis  stellis,  verum  apud 
principia  et  nexus  naturalium  causarum;  ac  tamen 
electionem  vitae  nobis  relinquunt,  quam  ubi  elegeris, 
certum  imminentium  ordinem ;  neque  mala  vel  bona 
quae  vulgus  putet."  47 

47  In  Richard  Greneway's  translation,  London,  1598,  one  of 
the  earliest  renderings  of  Tacitus  into  English,  this  passage 
stands  as  follows : 

"  When  I  heare  of  these  and  the  like  things,  I  can  give  no 
certaine  judgement,  whether  the  affaires  of  mortall  men  are 
governed  by  fate  and  immutable  necessitie ;  or  have  their 
course  and  change  by  chaunce  and  fortune.  For  thou  shalt 
finde,  that  as  well  those  which  were  accounted  wise  in  auncient 
times,  as  such  as  were  imitators  of  their  sect,  do  varie  and  dis- 
agree therein ;  some  do  resolutlie  beleeve  that  the  gods  have  no 
care  of  man's  beginning  or  ending ;  no,  not  of  man  at  all. 
Whereof  it  proceedeth  that  the  vertuous  are  tossed  and  af- 
flicted with  so  many  miseries;  and  the  vitious  (vicious)  and 
bad  triumphe  with  so  great  prosperities.  Contrarilie,  others 
are  of  opinion  that  fate  and  destinie  may  well  stand  with  the 
course  of  our  actions ;  yet  nothing  at  all  depend  of  the  planets 
or  stars,  but  proceede  from  a  connexion  of  naturall  causes 
as  from  their  beginning.  And  these  graunt  withall,  that  we 
have  free  choise  and  election  what  life  to  follow ;  which  being 
once  chosen,  we  are  guided  after,  by  a  certain  order  of  causes 
unto  our  end.  Neither  do  they  esteeme  those  things  to  be 
good  or  bad  which  the  vulgar  do  so  call." 

Murphy's  frequent  looseness  of  phraseology,  false  elegance, 
and  futile  commentary,  are  nowhere  more  conspicuous  than  in 


THE  CYCLIC  THEORY  183 

And  yet  the  theory  of  retribution  had  not  been 
without  its  influence  upon  Thucydides.  It  even 
forces  the  structure  of  his  later  books  into  the  regu- 
larity of  a  tragedy,  in  which  Athens  is  the  prota- 
gonist, and  a  verse  of  Sophocles  the  theme.  But 
his  earlier  and  greater  manner  prevails,  and  from 
the  study  of  his  work  the  mind  passes  easily  to  the 
contemplation  of  the  doom  which  awaited  the  de- 
stroyers of  Athens,  the  monstrous  tyrannies  in  Syra- 
cuse, and  Lacedaemon's  swift  ruin. 

Another  phase  of  the  position  of  Tacitus  deserves 
attention.  It  was  a  habit  of  writers  of  the  eight- 
eenth century,  in  treating  of  the  vicissitudes  of  em- 
pires, to  state  one  problem  and  solve  another.  The 
question  asked  was,  "  Is  there  a  law  regulating  the 
fall  of  empires?  " ;  but  the  question  answered,  satis- 
factorily or  unsatisfactorily,  was,  "  Is  there  a 
remedy  ?  "  Like  the  elder  Cato,  Tacitus  seems  in 
places  to  refer  the  ruin  which  he  anticipated  to 
Rome's  departure  from  the  austerity  and  simplicity 
of  the  early  centuries.  In  the  luxury  of  the  Caesars 
he  discerns  but  another  condemnation  of  the  policy 
of  Caius  Julius. 

The  use  which  Gibbon  has  made  of  this  argument 
is  celebrated.  In  Gibbon's  life,  indeed,  regret  for 
the  Empire,  for  the  Rome  of  Trajan  and  of  Marcus, 
exercises  as  strong  a  sway,  artistically,  as  regret  for 
the  Republic  exercises  over  the  art  and  thought  of 

his  version  of  the  sixth  book  of  the  Annals  and  of  this  para- 
graph in  particular. 


1 84  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

Tacitus.  Both  desiderate  a  world  which  is  not  now, 
musing  with  fierce  bitterness  or  cold  resignation 
upon  that  which  was  once  but  is  no  longer.  Both 
ponder  the  question,  "  How  could  the  disaster  have 
been  averted  ?  How  could  the  decline  of  Rome  have 
been  stayed  ?  "  Tacitus  is  the  greater  poet  —  more 
penetrating  in  vision,  a  greater  master  of  his 
medium,  profounder  in  his  insight  into  the  human 
heart.  But  a  common  atmosphere  of  elegy  pervades 
the  work  of  both,  and  if  Gibbon  again  and  again 
forgets  the  inquiry  with  which  he  set  out,  the 
charm  of  his  work  gains  thereby.  A  pensive  melan- 
choly akin  to  that  of  Petrarch's  Trionfi,  or  the  An- 
tiquites  de  Rome  of  Joachim  du  Bellay,  redeems 
from  monotony,  by  the  emotion  it  communicates, 
the  over-stately  march  of  many  a  balanced  period.48 
But  it  were  as  vain  to  seek  in  Tasso  for  a  philo- 
sophic theory  of  the  Crusades  as  seek  in  Gibbon  a 
philosophic  theory  of  the  decline  of  empires. 

48  Life,  Love,  Fame,  and  Death  are  themes  of  Petrarch's 
Triumphs.  The  same  profound  sense  of  the  transiency  of 
things,  which  meets  us  in  the  studied  pages  of  his  confessional 
—  the  Latin  treatise  De  Contemptu  Mundi  —  pervades  these 
exquisite  poems.  Du  Bellay's  Antiquities,  which  Spenser's 
translation  under  the  title  of  The  Ruins  of  Rome  has  made 
familiar,  were  written  after  a  visit  to  Rome  in  attendance 
upon  the  Cardinal  du  Bellay,  and  first  published  in  1558.  The 
beautiful  Songe  sur  Rome  accompanied  them.  Two  years 
later  Du  Bellay,  then  in  his  thirty-fifth  or  thirty-sixth  year, 
died.  The  preciousness  of  these  poems  is  enhanced  rather 
than  diminished  if  we  imagine  that  the  friend  of  Ronsard  en- 
deavoured to  wed  the  music  of  Villon's  Ballades  to  the  pass- 
ing of  empires  and  of  Rome. 


THE  CYCLIC  THEORY  185 

His  artistic  purpose  was  strengthened  to  some- 
thing like  a  prophetic  purpose  by  the  environment 
of  his  age,  the  incidents  of  his  life,  and  the  bent  of 
his  own  intellect.  He  combats  the  same  enemy  as 
Voltaire  waged  truceless  war  upon  —  the  subtle, 
intangible,  omnipresent  spirit  of  insincerity,  hypo- 
crisy, and  superstition,  from  which  the  bigotry  and 
religious  oppression  of  the  eighteenth  and  early  nine- 
teenth centuries  derived  their  power.  And  Gib- 
bon's indebtedness  to  Voltaire  is  amazing.  There 
is  scarcely  a  living  conception  in  the  Decline  and 
Fall  which  cannot  be  traced  to  that  nimble,  varied, 
and  all-illuminating  spirit.  Even  the  ironic  method 
of  the  two  renowned  chapters  was  prompted  by  a 
section  in  the  Essai  sur  les  Moeurs. 

Thus  to  the  theory  of  Tacitus,  the  departure  from 
the  ancient  simplicity  of  life,  Gibbon  adds  the  theory 
of  Zosimus.49  With  Zosimus  he  affirms  that  the 
triumph  of  Christianism  sealed  the  fate  of  Rome, 
and  in  the  Emperor  Julian  Gibbon  finds  the  same 
heroic  but  ill-starred  defender  of  the  past,  as  Tacitus 

49  In  the  generation  succeeding  that  of  St.  Augustine,  the 
fall  of  Rome  formed  the  subject  of  a  work  in  six  books  by 
Zosimus,  an  official  of  high  rank  at  Constantinople.  The  fifth 
and  sixth  books  deal  with  the  period  between  the  death  of 
Theodosius  and  the  capture  of  the  city  by  Alaric  (A.  D.  395- 
410).  Zosimus  ascribes  the  disaster  to  the  revolution  effected 
in  the  life  and  conduct  of  the  Romans  by  the  new  religion. 
The  tone  of  the  whole  history  is  evidently  inspired  by  the 
brilliant  but  irregular  works  of  the  Syrian  Eunapius  whom 
hero-worship  and  the  regret  for  a  lost  cause  blinded  to  all 
save  the  imposing  designs  of  the  Emperor  Julian. 


1 86  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

found  in  the  unfortunate  Germanicus.  This  con- 
ception informs  Gibbon's  work  throughout,  prompt- 
ing alike  the  furtive,  malignant,  or  tasteless  sketches 
of  the  great  Pontiffs  and  the  great  Caesars,  and  the 
finish,  the  studied  care,  the  vivid  detail  lavished 
upon  the  portraits  of  their  enemies.  Half-seriously, 
half-smiling  at  his  own  enthusiasm,  he  seems  to 
discern  in  Mohammed,  in  Saladin,  and  the  Ottoman 
power,  the  avengers  of  Julian  and  the  Rome  of  the 
Antonines. 

And  thus  Ruskin,  inspired  by  a  mood  of  his  great 
teacher,  traces  the  decline  of  Venice  to  its  abandon- 
ment of  Christianism,  and  Gibbon,  influenced  by 
Voltaire  and  the  environment  of  his  age,  traces  the 
fall  of  Rome  to  the  adoption  of  Christianism. 

§  5.     WHAT  IS  MEANT  BY  THE  "  FALL  OF  AN 
EMPIRE"? 

Underlying  both  these  classes  of  theories,  the 
retributive  and  the  cyclic,  and  underlying  much  of 
the  speculation  both  of  the  eighteenth  and  of  the 
nineteenth  century  upon  the  subject,  is  the  assump- 
tion that  the  decay  of  empires  is  accidental,  or  arises 
from  causes  that  can  be  averted,  or  from  the  opera- 
tion of  forces  that  can  be  modified.  The  mediaeval 
conception  of  one  empire  upon  the  earth,  which  yet 
shall  endure  forever  in  righteousness,  influences  even 
the  mind  of  Gibbon.  He  had  studied  Polybius,  and 
Rome's  indefeasible  right  to  the  government  of  the 
world  was  the  faith  which  Polybius  had  announced. 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  187 

And  in  the  hour  of  Judaea's  humiliation  and  ruin 
her  prophets  had  still  proclaimed  a  similar  hope  of 
everlasting  dominion  to  Israel. 

But,  as  the  centuries  advance,  it  grows  ever 
clearer  that  regret  or  surprise  at  the  passing  of  em- 
pires is  like  regret  or  surprise  at  the  passing  of 
youth.  Man  might  as  well  start  once  more  to  dis- 
cover the  elixir  of  life  and  alchemy' s  secrets  as  hope 
to  found  an  empire  that  shall  not  pass  away. 

To  ponder  too  curiously  the  question  why  a  State 
declines  is  like  pondering  too  curiously  the  question 
why  a  man  dies.  In  the  vicissitudes  of  States  we 
are  on  the  threshold  of  the  same  Mystery  as  in  the 
vicissitudes  of  nature  and  of  human  life.  The  tracts 
and  regions  governed  by  cause  and  effect  are  behind 
us.  An  empire,  like  a  work  of  art,  is  an  end  in 
itself,  but  duration  in  the  former  is  an  integral  por- 
tion or  phase  of  that  end.  From  the  concept,  "  Em- 
pire," duration  is  inseparable,  and  the  extent  of  that 
duration  is  involved  in  the  concept  itself.  Dura- 
tion and  modes,  religious  or  ethical,  are  alike  de- 
termined from  within,  from  the  divine  thought 
realising  itself  through  the  individual  in  the  State. 
The  curve  of  an  empire's  history  is  directed  by  no 
self-existent,  isolated  causes.  It  is  a  portion  of  the 
universe,  evading  analysis  as  the  beauty  of  a  statue 
evades  analysis,  lost  in  the  vastness  of  nature,  in  the 
labyrinths  of  the  soul  which  created  and  of  the  soul 
which  contemplates  its  perfection. 

Therefore  regret  for  the  fall  of  an  empire,  unless, 


i88  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

as  in  the  works  of  a  Gibbon  or  a  Tacitus,  it  aids  in 
transforming  the  present  nearer  to  the  heart's  de- 
sire, is  vain  enough.  The  Eros  of  Praxiteles  and 
the  Athene  of  Scopas,  like  the  Cena  of  Leonardo 
and  the  Martyr  of  Titian,  are  beyond  our  reach,  and 
with  all  our  industry  we  shall  hardly  recover  the 
ninety  tragedies  of  Aeschylus.  But  the  moment 
within  the  soul  of  the  artist  which  these  works  en- 
shrined, which  by  their  inception  and  completion 
they  did  but  strengthen  and  prolong,  that  moment  of 
vision  has  not  passed  away.  It  has  become  part  of 
the  eternal,  as  the  aspirations,  fortitudes,  heroisms, 
endurances,  great  aims  which  Rome  or  Hellas  imper- 
sonates have  become  part  of  the  eternal.  Man, 
born  into  a  world  which  was  not  made  for  him,  is 
perplexed,  until  in  such  moments  the  end  for  which 
he  was  himself  fashioned  is  revealed.  The  artist, 
the  hero,  and  the  prophet  give  of  their  peace  unto 
the  world.  Yet  is  this  gift  but  a  secondary  thing, 
and  subject  to  cause,  and  time,  and  change. 

In  the  consummation  of  the  life  of  a  State  the 
world-soul  realises  itself  in  a  moment  analogous  to 
this  moment  in  art.  The  form  perishes,  nation,  city, 
empire;  but  the  creative  thought,  the  soul  of  the 
State,  endures.  As  the  marble  or  poem  represents 
the  supreme  hour  in  the  individual  life,  the  ideal 
long  pursued  imaged  there,  perfect  or  imperfect,  so 
the  State  represents  the  ideal  pursued  by  the  race. 
It  is  the  embodiment  in  living  immaterial  substance 
of  the  creative  purpose  of  the  race,  of  the  individual, 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  189 

and  ultimately  of  the  Divine.  The  State  is  imma- 
terial ;  no  visible  form  betrays  it.  Athene  or  Roma 
are  but  the  abitrary  emblems  of  an  invisible,  ever 
changing  life,  most  subtle,  most  complex,  yet  indi- 
visibly  one,  woven  each  day  anew  from  myriads 
of  aspirations,  designs,  ideals,  recorded  or  unre- 
corded. Those  heroic  personalities,  a  Hildebrand,  a 
Napoleon,  a  Cromwell,  a  Richelieu,  who  usurp  the 
attributes  of  the  State,  do  but  interpret  the  State 
to  itself,  rudely  or  faultlessly.  Philip  and  Alex- 
ander, Baber  and  Akbar,  are  the  men  who  respond 
to,  who  feel  more  profoundly  than  other  men,  the 
ideal,  the  impulse  which  beats  at  the  heart  of  the 
race.  The  divine  thought  is  in  them  more  immanent 
than  in  other  men.  To  Akbar  the  vision  of  the  con- 
tinent from  Himalaya  to  either  sea,  all  brought  to 
the  feet  of  Mohammed,  of  Islam,  impersonated  in 
himself,  is  an  ethereal  vision  like  that  which  leads 
Alexander  eastward  beyond  the  Tigris  to  spread  far 
the  name  of  Hellas.  Akbar  started  as  his  grand- 
father had  started,  and  Baber 's  faith  was  not  less 
sincere.50  But  the  contact  with  other  races  and 

50  Baber's  own  memoirs,  Memoirs  of  Zehir-ed-dln  Muham~ 
med  Baber,  emperor  of  Hindustan,  one  of  the  priceless  docu- 
ments of  history,  show  the  manner  in  which  he  conceived  his 
mission.  Here  is  his  account  of  the  supreme  incident  in  his 
spiritual  life :  "  In  January,  1527,  messengers  came  from 
Mehdi  Khwajeh  to  announce  that  Sanka,  the  Rana  of  Mewar, 
and  Hassan  Khan  Mewati,  were  on  their  march  from  the 
west.  On  February  nth  I  went  forth  to  the  Holy  War.  On 
the  25th  I  mounted  to  survey  my  posts,  and  during  the  ride  I 
was  struck  with  the  reflection  that  I  had  always  resolved  to 


190  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

other  creeds  diverted  or  heightened  this  first  purpose 
of  the  Mongol,  and  at  the  pinnacle  of  earthly  power, 
"Akbar  met  and  yielded  to  the  temptation,  which 
dazzled  for  a  moment  even  the  steady  gaze  of  Napo- 
leon. Apprehending  the  unity  beneath  the  diver- 
sity of  the  religions  of  his  various  subjects,  Hindoo, 
Persian,  Mohammedan,  Christian,  Akbar  dared  the 
lofty  enterprise  and  essayed  to  extract  the  common 
truth  of  all,  selecting,  as  Julian  had  done,  twelve 
centuries  before  him,  the  sun  as  the  symbol  of  uni- 
versal beneficence,  and  truth,  and  life.  He  failed, 
but  failed  greatly. 

The  distinctions  of  a  great  State,  art,  action, 
empire,  supremacy  in  thought,  supremacy  in  deed, 
supremacy  in  conception  of  the  ideal  of  humanity, 
like  rays  emanating  from  the  same  divine  centre, 
thither  converge  again.  Any  attempt  to  explain 

make  an  effectual  repentance  at  some  period  of  my  life.  I 
now  spoke  with  myself  thus  — '  O  my  soul,  how  long  wilt  thou 
continue  to  take  pleasure  in  sin?  Not  bitter  is  repentance: 
then  taste  it  thou !  Since  the  day  wherein  thou  didst  set 
forth  on  a  Holy  War,  thou  hast  seen  Death  before  thine  eyes 
for  thy  salvation.  And  he  who  sacrificeth  his  life  to  save  his 
soul  shall  attain  that  exalted  state  thou  wottest  of.'  Then  I 
sent  for  the  gold  and  the  silver  goblets,  and  broke  them,  and 
drank  wine  no  more,  and  purified  my  heart.  And  having  thus 
heard  from  the  Voice  that  errs  not,  the  tidings  of  peace,  and 
being  now  for  the  first  time  a  Mussulman  indeed,  I  com- 
manded that  the  Holy  War  shall  begin  with  the  grand  war 
against  the  evil  in  our  hearts."  Such  was  the  mood  in  which, 
on  the  24th  of  the  first  Jemadi,  A.  H.  933,  Baber  proceeded  to 
found  the  Mogul  Empire. 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  191 

their  succession  and  decay  in  terms  of  a  mechanical 
law  must  thus  lead  either  to  the  reserve  of  Machia- 
velli,  to  the  outworn  fantasies  of  Bossuet,  or  to  such 
formulas  as  those  of  Ruskin  and  Gibbon,  in  which 
synchronous  phenomena  are  woven  into  a  chain  of 
causes  and  effects. 

Even  in  the  sphere  of  individual  existence  death 
is  but  a  mode  of  human  thought,  a  name  which  has 
no  counterpart  in  the  frame  of  things.  As  life  is 
but  a  mode  of  the  divine  thought,  so  death  is  but 
a  mode  of  human  thought,  a  creation  of  the  intellect 
the  more  vividly  to  realise  itself  and  life.  Every 
effect  is  in  turn  a  cause.  Therefore  every  cause  is 
eternal,  an  infinite  series,  existing  at  once  successive 
and  simultaneous ;  for  the  effect  is  not  the  death  of, 
but  the  continued  life  of  the  cause.  Universes  and 
the  soul  of  man  are  but  self -trans  formations  of  the 
first  last  Cause,  the  One,  the  Cause  within  Cause 
immortal,  effect  within  effect  unending.  "  Man," 
it  has  been  said,  "  is  the  inventor  of  Nothingness. 
Nature  and  the  Universe  know  it  not."  The  past 
wields  over  the  present  a  power  which  could  never 
be  derived  from  Death  and  Nothingness.  No  age, 
as  was  pointed  out  in  the  first  chapter,  has  felt  this 
power  so  intimately  as  the  present.  As  if  we  had 
a  thousand  lives  to  live,  we  consume  the  present  in 
the  study  of  the  past,  and  sink  from  sight  ourselves 
while  still  contemplating  the  scenes  designed  for 
other  eyes.  Even  our  most  living  impulses  we  in- 


192  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

terpret  as  if  they  were  sacred  runes  carved  by  long- 
vanished  hands,  so  that  it  seems  as  if  the  dead  alone 
lived,  and  the  living  alone  were  dead. 

But  the  soul  unifies  all  things,  and  is  then  most 
in  the  present  when  most  deeply  absorbed  in  the 
past.  The  soul  of  man  is  the  true  Logos  of  the 
universe.  It  is  the  contemporary  of  all  the  ages, 
and  to  none  of  the  aeons  is  it  a  stranger.  It  heard 
the  informing  voice  which  instructed  the  planets  in 
their  paths,  which  moulded  the  rocks,  the  bones  of 
the  earth,  and  cast  the  sea  and  the  far-stretched 
plains  and  the  hills  about  them  like  a  covering  of 
flesh.  Therefore  time  and  death  and  nothingness 
are  but  shadows,  which  the  intellect  of  man  sets 
over  against  the  substance  which  lives  and  is  eter- 
nally. 

And  thus  in  the  vicissitudes  of  States,  even  more 
impressively  than  elsewhere  in  the  universal  process 
of  transformation  which  Nature  is,  the  daring 
metaphor  of  the  Hebrew,  "  As  a  vesture  shalt  Thou 
change  them,  and  they  shall  be  changed/'  seems 
realised.  The  death  of  a  State,  the  fall  of  an  em- 
pire, are  but  phases  in  their  history,  by  which  a  com- 
plete self-realisation  is  attained,  or  the  perpetuation 
of  their  ideals  under  other  forms,  as  Egypt  in 
Hellas,  Hellas  in  Rome,  is  secured. 

In  Portugal's  short  span  of  empire,  her  day  of 
brief  and  troubled  splendour,  her  monarchs  realise, 
even  at  the  hazard  of  a  temporary  eclipse  of  the 
nation's  independence,  the  aspirations  of  the  race, 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  193 

which  slowly  arising,  and  growing  in  force  and  in- 
tensity, had  become  the  fixed  tyrannous  desire  of  a 
people,  until,  in  Camoens'  terse  phrase  of  Manuel, 
"  from  that  one  great  thought  it  never  swerved." 
Another  policy  and  other  aims  than  those  which  her 
monarchs  pursued  —  tolerance  instead  of  fanaticism, 
prudence  instead  of  heroism,  national  patriotism  in- 
stead of  imperial,  homely  common-sense  instead  of 
glorious  wisdom  —  all  or  any  of  these  might  have 
warded  off  the  doom  of  Portugal  and  of  the  house 
of  Avis.  But  these  things  were  not  in  the  blood  of 
Lusitania,  nor  would  this  have  been  the  nation  of 
Vasco  da  Gama  and  Camoens,  of  Alboquerque  and 
Cabral.  It  is  as  vain  to  seek  in  depopulation  for 
the  causes  of  the  fall  of  Portugal  as  in  the  Inqui- 
sition or  the  Papal  power.  Even  Buckle,  that 
mighty  statistician,  would  hardly  risk  the  determin- 
ing of  the  ratio  which  may  not  be  overstepped  be- 
tween the  bounds  of  an  empire  and  the  extent  of  the 
nation  which  creates  it.  If  her  yeomen  forsook  the 
fields  and  left  the  soil  of  Portugal  untilled,  if  her 
chivalry  forsook  their  estates,  the  question  confronts 
us :  What  is  the  character,  the  heart  of  a  race  which 
acts  in  this  manner?  What  is  the  ideal  powerful 
enough  to  make  the  hazard  of  a  nation's  death  pref- 
erable to  the  abandonment  of  that  ideal?  The 
nation  which  sent  its  bravest  to  die  at  Al-Kasr  al 
Kebir 51  is  not  a  nation  of  adventurers.  Nor  do  the 

51  The  battle  of  Al-Kasr  al  Kebir,  in  Morocco,  about  fifty 
miles   south  of   Tangiers,   was   fought  on   August  4th,    1578. 


194  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

instances  of  Phocsea,  of  the  Cimbri,  or  the  Ostro- 
goths afford  any  analogy  here.  Dom  Sebastian's 
device  fits  not  only  his  own  career  but  the  history  of 
the  race  of  which  at  that  epoch  he  was  at  once  the 
king  and  the  ideal  hero  — "  A  glorious  death  makes 
the  whole  life  glorious."  And  the  genius  of  the 
nation  sanctioned  his  life  and  his  heroic  death.  To 
Portugal  Dom  Sebastian  became  such  a  figure  as 
Frederick  Barbarossa,  dead  on  the  far-off  crusade, 
had  been  to  the  Middle  Age,  and  for  two  centuries, 
whenever  night  thickened  around  the  fortunes  of  the 
race,  the  spirit  of  Dom  Sebastian  returned  to  illu- 
mine the  gloom,  showing  himself  to  a  few  faithful 
ones;  and  in  very  truth  the  spirit  of  his  deeds  and 
of  their  fathers  never  died  in  the  hearts  of  the 
Portuguese,  inspiring  whatever  is  memorable  in  their 
later  history. 

Spain  completes  in  the  expulsion  of  the  Moors  the 
warfare,  the  Crusade,  which  began  with  Pelayo  and 
the  remnant  of  the  Visigoths.  Spain,  as  Spain, 
could  not  act  otherwise,  could  not  act  as  Germany 
acted,  as  England  acted.  Venice,  so  far  from  aban- 
doning the  faith  of  the  Nazarene,  as  Ruskin  fancied, 
barred  of  her  commerce,  seeing  her  power  pass  to 
Portugal,  did  yet,  solitary  and  unaided,  face  the 
Ottoman,  and  for  two  generations  made  the  Cru- 

The  king,  Dom  Sebastian,  and  the  flower  of  the  Portuguese 
nobility  died  on  the  field.  As  in  Scotland  after  Flodden,  there 
was  not  a  house  of  name  in  Portugal  which  had  not  its  dead 
to  mourn. 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  195 

sades  live  again.  It  is  another  Venice,  yet  religion 
is  not  the  cause  of  that  otherness.  She  defies  Paul 
V  in  the  name  of  freedom,  in  the  days  of  Sarpi,52 
as  she  had  defied  Innocent  III  in  the  name  of  em- 
pire in  the  days  of  Dandolo. 

Hellas  still  lives,  still  forms  an  element,  vitalising 
and  omnipresent,  in  the  life  of  States  and  in  human 
destiny.  Roman  grandeur  is  not  dead  whilst  Sulla, 
Tacitus,  Montesquieu,  Machiavelli  survive.  To 
Petrarch  the  Rome  of  the  Scipios  is  more  present 
than  the  Rome  of  the  Colonnas,  and  it  numbers 
among  its  citizens  Byron,  Goethe,  and  Leopardi. 

For  like  all  great  empires  Rome  strove  not  for 
herself  but  for  humanity,  and  dying,  had  yet 
strength,  by  her  laws,  her  religion,  her  language, 
to  impart  her  spirit  and  the  secret  of  her  peace  to 
other  races  and  to  other  times.  In  the  world's 
palastra  she  had  thrown  the  discus  to  a  point  which 

52  The  genius  of  this  great  thinker,  patriot,  scholar,  and 
historian,  along  with  the  heroism  of  the  war  of  Candia,  "  the 
longest  and  most  memorable  siege  on  record,"  as  Voltaire 
designates  it,  throw  a  dying  lustre  over  the  Venice  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  which  in  painting  has  then  but  such 
names  as  those  of  Podovanino  and  the  younger  Cagliari. 
Sarpi's  defence  of  Venice  against  Paul  V,  an  attorney  in  the 
seat  of  Hildebrand,  occurred  in  1605.  It  consists  of  two 
works  —  the  Tractate  and  the  Considerations  —  and  probably 
of  a  third  drawn  up  for  the  secret  use  of  the  Council  of  Ten. 
Like  Voltaire,  Sarpi  seems  to  have  lived  with  a  pen  in  his 
hand.  His  manuscripts  in  the  Venice  archives  fill  twenty- 
nine  folio  volumes.  The  first  collected  edition  of  his  works 
was  published,  not  unfitly,  in  the  year  of  the  fall  of  the 
Bastille. 


196  STATES  AND  EMPIRES 

the  empires  that  come  after,  dowered  as  Rome  was 
dowered,  and  by  kindred  ideals  fired,  must  struggle 
to  surpass,  or  in  this  divine  antagonism  be  broken. 

For  what  does  the  fall  of  Rome  mean,  and  what 
are  its  relations  to  this  Empire  of  Britain?  In  an 
earlier  chapter  I  illustrated  my  conception  of  the 
Rome  of  the  fifth  century  in  the  similitude  of  a  Goth 
bending  over  a  dead  Roman,  and  by  the  flare  of 
a  torch  seeking  to  read  on  the  still  brow  the  secret 
of  his  own  destiny.  Rome  does  not  die  there.  Her 
genius  lives  on  in  the  Gothic  race,  deep,  penetrating, 
and  all-informing,  and  in  the  picked  valour  of  that 
race,  which  for  six  hundred  years  spends  itself  in 
forging  England,  it  is  deepest,  most  penetrating,  and 
all-informing.  Roman  definiteness  of  thought  and 
act  were  in  that  nation  touched  by  mysticism  to 
reverie  and  compassion.  From  the  ashes  of  the 
dead  ideal  of  concrete  justice,  imaginative  justice 
is  born.  Right  becomes  righteousness,  but  the  liv- 
ing genius  which  was  Rome  still  pulses  within  it. 
By  the  energy  of  feudalism  the  ancient  subjection  of 
the  individual  to  the  State  is  challenged.  Freedom 
is  born,  but  like  some  winged  glory  hovering  aloft, 
rivets  the  famished  eyes  of  men,  till  at  last, 
descending  by  the  Rhine,  it  fills  with  its  radiance  a 
darkened  world.  Religious  oppression  is  stayed, 
but,  Phoenix-like,  yet  another  ideal  arises,  and  gener- 
ations later,  what  a  temple  is  reared  for  it  by  the 
Seine !  And  now  in  this  era,  and  at  this  latest  time, 
behold  in  England  the  glory  has  once  more  alighted, 


THE  FALL  OF  EMPIRES  197 

as  once  for  a  brief  space  by  the  Rhine  and  Seine,  but 
surely  to  make  here  its  lasting  mansionary.  For  in 
very  truth,  in  all  that  freedom  and  all  that  justice 
possess  of  power  towards  good  amongst  men,  is  not 
England  as  it  were  earth's  central  shrine  and  this 
race  the  vanguard  of  humanity? 

Rome  was  the  synthesis  of  the  empires  of  the 
past,  of  Hellas,  of  Egypt,  of  Assyria.  In  her  pur- 
poses their  purposes  lived.  Mediaeval  imperialism 
strove  not  to  rival  Rome  but  to  be  Rome.  In 
Britain  the  spirit  of  Empire  receives  a  new  incarna- 
tion. The  form  decays,  the  divine  idea  remains,  the 
creative  spirit  gliding  from  this  to  that,  indestruct- 
ible. And  thus  the  destiny  of  empires  involves  the 
consideration  of  the  destiny  of  man. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  DESTINY   OF   IMPERIAL   BRITAIN    AND   THE 
DESTINY  OF   MAN 

THOUGH  life  itself  and  all  its  modes  are  transient, 
but  shadows  cast  through  the  richly-tinted  veil  of 
Maya  upon  the  everlasting  deep  of  things,  yet  such 
dreams  as  those  of  perpetual  peace  and  of  empires 
exempt  from  degeneration  and  decay,  like  the  illu- 
sion of  perpetual  happiness,  the  prayer  of  Spinoza 
for  some  one  "  supreme,  continuous,  unending  bliss," 
have  mocked  man  from  the  beginning  of  recorded 
history  to  the  present  hour.  They  are  ancient  as 
the  rocks  and  their  musings  from  eternity,  inextin- 
guishable as  the  elan  of  the  soul  imprisoned  in  time 
towards  that  which  is  beyond  time. 

And  yet  the  effect  of  these,  as  of  all  false  illusions, 
is  but  to  render  the  value  of  Reality  —  I  had  almost 
said  of  the  real  Illusion  —  more  poignant.  Indeed, 
"  false  "  and  "  unreal  "  at  all  times  are  mere  desig- 
nations we  apply  to  the  hours  of  dim  and  uncertain 
vision  53  when  tested  by  the  standard  which  the  mo- 
ments of  perfect  insight  afford. 

53  I  am  aware  of  Spinoza's  distinction  of  the  "  clara  et  dis- 
tincta  idea"  and  the  "inadequate  idea";  but  the  distinction 
above  flows  from  a  conception  of  the  universe  and  of  man's 
destiny  which  is  not  Spinoza's  nor  Spinozistic. 

198 


DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN       199 

Nothing  is  more  tedious,  yet  nothing  is  more  in- 
structive, than  the  study  of  the  formulated  ideals, 
the  imagings  of  what  life  might  be  or  life  ought 
to  be,  of  poets  or  systematic  philosophers.  Nothing 
so  instantly  reconciles  us  to  war  as  the  delineations 
of  humanity  under  "  meek-eyed  Peace  ";  and  to  the 
passing  of  visible  things,  empires,  states,  arts,  laws, 
and  this  universal  frame  of  things,  as  such  attempts 
as  have  been  made  to  stay  time  and  change,  and 
abrogate  the  ordinances  of  the  world. 

Was  machst  du  an  der  Welt?  sie  ist  schon  gemacht. 
Why  shapest  thou  the  world?  'twas  shapen  long  ago.54 

Nor  does  this  result  in  the  mood  of  Candide. 
The  effort  unconquered  and  unending  to  behold  the 
visible  and  the  passing  as  in  very  truth  it  is,  leads 
to  a  deeper  vision  of  the  Unseen  and  of  the  Eternal 
as  in  very  truth  it  is. 

Thus  we  are  prepared  to  consider  the  following 
question.  Given  that  death  is  nothing,  and  the  de- 
cline of  empires  but  a  change  of  form,  will  this 
empire  of  Imperial  Britain  also  decline  and  fall? 
Will  the  form  it  now  enshrines  pass  away,  as  the 
forms  of  Persia,  Rome,  the  Empire  of  Akbar,  have 
passed  away?  The  question  resolves  itself  into  two 
parts  —  in  what  does  the  youth  of  a  race  or  of  an 

64  Was  machst  du  an  der  Welt  ?  sie  ist  schon  gemacht ; 
Der  Herr  der  Schopfung  hat  alles  bedacht. 
Dein  Loos  ist  gefallen,  verfolge  die  Weise, 
Der  Weg  ist  begonnen,  vollende  die  Reise. 

GOETHE,  West-ostlicher  Divan,  Buck  der  Spruche. 


200      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

empire  consist  ?  And,  secondly,  is  it  possible  by  any 
analogy  from  the  past  to  measure  or  gauge  the  pos- 
sible or  probable  duration  of  Imperial  Britain,  to 
determine  to  what  era,  say  in  the  history  of  such  an 
empire  as  Rome  or  Islam,  the  present  era  in  the  his- 
tory of  Imperial  Britain  corresponds  ? 

§  I.       THE    PRESENT    STAGE   IN    THE    HISTORY    OF 
IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

First  of  all  with  regard  to  the  former  question. 
Recent  studies  in  ethnology  have  made  it  clear  that 
youth,  and  all  that  this  term  implies  of  latent  or 
realised  energies,  mental,  physical,  intellectual,  is  not 
the  inevitable  attribute  and  exclusive  possession  of 
uncivilised  or  of  recently  civilised  races.  Yet  this 
assumption  still  underlies  much  of  the  current  specu- 
lation on  the  subject.  Last  century  it  was  received 
as  an  axiomatic  truth.  Thus  in  the  time  of  Louis 
XV,  when  a  romantic  interest  first  invested  the 
American  Indians,  French  writers  saw  in  them  the 
prototypes  of  the  Germans  described  by  Tacitus. 
Not  only  Voltaire  and  Rousseau,  but  Montesquieu 
himself,  regard  them  curiously,  as  if  in  the  back- 
woods dwelt  the  future  dominators  of  the  world. 
Comparisons  were  drawn  between  their  manners, 
their  religion,  their  customs,  and  those  of  the  Goths 
and  the  Franks,  and  litterateurs  indulged  the  fancy 
that  in  delineating  the  Hurons  of  the  Mississippi 
they  were  preparing  for  posterity  a  literary  surprise 
and  a  document  lasting  as  the  Germania.  Such 


THE  PRESENT  STAGE  201 

comparisons  are  still  at  times  made,  but  they  are  like 
the  comparison  between  a  rising  and  a  receding  tide, 
both  trace  the  same  line  along  the  sands,  but  it  is  the 
same  tide  only  in  appearance.  It  is  the  contrast  be- 
tween the  simplicity  of  childhood  and  of  senility, 
between  the  simplicity  of  a  race  dowered  with 
many-sided  genius  and  of  a  race  dowered  with  but 
one-sided  genius.  It  is  neither  in  the  absence  of 
civilisation,  nor  in  its  newness,  that  the  youth  of  a 
race  consists ;  nor  does  the  old  age  of  a  race  consist 
in  refinement,  nor  capacity  for  the  arts  necessarily 
imply  decline  of  political  energy.  The  victories  of 
the  Germans  in  1870  were  like  Fate's  ironic  com- 
ment upon  the  inferences  drawn  from  their  love  of 
philosophy.  Abstract  thought  had  not  unfitted  the 
race  for  war,  nor  "  Wertherism  "  for  the  battlefield. 
But,  as  in  the  life  of  the  individual,  so  in  the  life 
of  a  race,  youth  consists  in  capacity  for  enthusiasm 
for  a  great  ideal,  capacity  to  frame,  resolution  to 
pursue,  devotion  to  sacrifice  all  to  a  great  political 
end.  Russia,  for  instance,  has  only  recently  come 
within  the  influence  of  European  culture,  but  this 
does  not  make  the  Slav  a  youthful  race.  The 
Slavonic  is  indeed  perhaps  the  oldest  people  in 
Europe.  Its  literature,  its  art,  its  music,  the  charac- 
teristics of  its  society  alike  attest  this.  Superstition 
is  not  youth-,  else  we  might  look  to  the  hut  of  the 
Samoyede  even  with  more  confidence  than  to  the 
cabin  of  the  Moujik  for  the  imperial  race  of  the 
future.  And  prolificness  in  a  race  does  as  surely  de- 


202      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

note  resignation  to  be  governed,  as  the  genius  to 
govern  others. 

And  the  Slav,  as  we  have  seen,  has  at  no  period 
of  his  history  shown  that  "  youth  "  which  consists 
in  capacity  for  a  great  political  ideal,  either  in 
Poland,  or  amongst  the  Czechs,  or  in  Russia. 

The  present  German  empire  assuredly  exhibits  in 
nothing  the  qualities  of  ancient  lineage ;  yet  the  race 
which  composes  it  is  the  same  race  as  was  once 
united  under  Hapsburg,  under  Luxemburg,  under 
Hohenstauffen,  and  under  Franconian,  as  now  under 
the  Hohenzollern  dynasty. 

The  United  States  as  a  nation  bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  Britain  as  the  Moorish  kingdom  in  Spain 
bore  to  the  Saracenic  empire  of  Bagdad.  It  is  a 
fragment,  a  colossal  fragment  torn  from  the  central 
mass ;  but  not  only  in  its  language,  its  literature,  its 
religion  and  its  laws,  but  in  individual  and  national 
peculiarities,  at  least  in  the  deeper  moments  of  his- 
tory and  of  life,  the  original  stock  asserts  itself. 
The  State  is  young;  but  the  race  is  precisely  of  the 
same  remoteness  as  Britain  and  the  Greater  Britain. 

Passing  to  the  second  point  —  at  what  epoch  do 
we  now  stand  as  compared  with  Rome  or  Islam? 
It  is  not  unusual  to  speak  of  Britain  as  an  aged  em- 
pire, but  such  estimates  or  descriptions  commonly 
rest  upon  a  misapprehension,  first,  of  the  period  in 
which  the  Nation  of  England  strictly  speaking  arises, 
and  secondly,  of  the  period  in  which  the  Empire  of 
Britain  arises. 


THE  PRESENT  STAGE  203 

The  traditional  date  of  the  landing  of  Hengist 
does  not  indicate  a  moment  analogous  to  the  moment 
in  the  history  of  Rome  marked  by  the  traditional 
date  of  the  foundation  of  the  city.  The  date  776 
B.  c.  marks  the  close  of  a  process  of  transformation 
and  slow  evolving  unity  extending  over  centuries,  so 
that  the  era  of  Romulus  and  the  early  kings,  Numa, 
Ancus,  and  Servius,  may  be  regarded  as  an  epoch 
in  Rome's  history  analogous  to  the  period  in  Eng- 
land's history  between  Senlac  and  the  constitutional 
struggle  of  the  thirteenth  century.  The  former  is 
the  period  in  which  the  civic  unity  of  Rome  is  com- 
pleted. The  latter  is  the  period  in  which  the 
national  unity  of  England  is  completed.  Rome  is 
now  finally  conscious  to  itself  of  its  career  as  a  city, 
urbs  Roma,  as  England  in  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  is  finally  conscious  to  itself  of  its  career  as 
a  nation.  Magna  Carta  and  the  constitutional 
struggle  which  followed  may  be  said  to  determine 
the  course  of  the  national  and  political  life  of  Eng- 
land as  much  as  the  Servian  Code  founded  the  civic 
unity  and  determined  the  character  of  the  constitu- 
tional life  of  Rome. 

And,  as  was  pointed  out  in  an  earlier  chapter,  al- 
ready in  Rome  and  in  England  there  are  premoni- 
tions, foreshado  wings  of  the  future.  The  design  of 
the  city  on  the  seven  hills  is  the  design  of  the  eternal 
city,  and  the  devotion  of  the  gens  Fabia  announces 
the  Roman  legion.  And  in  those  wars  of  Cregy  and 
Poitiers,  the  constancy,  the  dauntless  heart,  and  the 


204      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

steady  hand  of  the  English  archers,  which  broke  the 
chivalry  of  France,  what  is  it  but  the  constancy  of 
Waterloo,  the  squares,  the  charge,  the  Duke's  words, 
spoken  quietly  as  the  words  of  fate,  decreeing  an 
empire's  fall,  "  Stand  up,  Guards!  "?  And  in  1381, 
the  tramp  of  the  feet  of  the  hurrying  peasants,  sons 
and  grandsons  of  the  archers  of  Crec.y,  in  the  great 
Revolt,  indignant  at  ingratitude  and  wrong,  what  is 
it  but  the  prelude  to  the  supremacy  of  the  People  of 
England,  to  the  Petition  of  Right,  to  Cromwell's 
Ironsides,  to  Chartism  and  Reform  Acts,  and  the 
Democracy,  self-governing,  imperial  and  warlike  of 
the  present  hour?  So  that  even  as  a  nation,  about 
eighteen  generations  may  be  eaid  to  sum  England's 
life,  whilst,  as  we  have  seen,  Britain's  conscious  life 
as  an  empire  extends  backwards  but  to  three  genera- 
tions or  to  four.  Thus  if  the  question  were  asked, 
With  what  period  in  the  history  of  Rome  does  the 
present  age  correspond?  I  should  say,  roughly 
speaking,  it  corresponds  with  the  period  of  Titus 
and  Vespasian,  when  Rome  has  still  a  course-of  three 
hundred  years  to  run;  and  in  the  history  of  Islam, 
with  the  period  of  the  early  Abbassides,  when  the 
fall  of  the  Saracenic  dominion  is  still  some  four  cen- 
turies removed. 

Does  this  justify  us  in  inferring  that  the  course 
which  England  has  to  run  will  extend  still  over  three 
centuries  and  that  then  England  too  will  pass  away, 
as  Rome,  as  the  Saracenic  empire,  have  passed  away? 
So  far  as  the  determination  of  the  eras  in  our  his- 


THE  PRESENT  STAGE  205 

tory  which  correspond  in  development  to  eras  in  the 
history  of  Rome  or  of  Islam  is  concerned,  the  infer- 
ence from  analogy  possesses  a  certain  validity. 
And  the  accidental  or  fixed  resemblances  between  the 
empires  of  Islam,55  Rome,  and  Imperial  Britain  are 
numerous  and  striking  enough  to  render  such  com- 
parisons of  real  significance  to  speculative  politics. 
But  the  similarity  in  structural  expansion  or  in  en- 
vironment which  can  be  traced  throughout  the  com- 
pleted dramas  of  Rome  and  Islam  is  to  be  found  only 
in  the  initial  stages  of  Imperial  Britain.  Then  the 
argument  from  analogy  fails,  and  our  judgment  is 
at  a  stand. 

Assuming  that  each  imperial  race  starts  its  career 
dowered  with  a  vital  capacity  of  definite  range,  and 
allowing  for  the  necessary  divergences  in  their 
course  between  a  civic  and  a  national  state,  Imperial 
Britain,  regarded  from  its  past,  may  be  said  in  the 
present  era  to  have  reached  a  stage  represented  by 
the  era  of  Vespasian  and  Titus;  but  to  proceed  fur- 
ther is  perilous,  so  momentous  is  the  distinction  that 
now  arises  between  the  circumstances  of  the  two  em- 
pires. During  the  present  century  the  vast  trans- 
formations which  have  been  effected  by  science  in 

65  Recent  investigation  has  made  it  clear  that  the  history  of 
Islamic  Arabia  is  not  severed  by  any  violent  convulsion  from 
pre-Mohammedan  Arabia.  "  The  times  of  ignorance "  were 
not  the  desolate  waste  which  Tabari,  "  the  Livy  of  the  Arabs," 
paints,  and  down  to  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
comparison  between  England,  Rome,  and  Islam  offers  a  fair 
field  for  speculative  politics. 


206      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

the  surroundings  of  man's  physical  life  make  all 
speculation  upon  the  duration  of  Imperial  Britain 
by  analogies  drawn  from  the  duration  either  of 
Rome  or  of  other  empires,  indecisive  or  rash. 

The  growth  of  the  idea  of  freedom,  and  the 
modern  interpretation  of  that  idea  in  the  spirit  of 
Condorcet,  have,  within  the  bounds  of  the  English 
nation  itself,  increased  the  intercourse  between  ranks 
to  a  degree  unparalleled  in  the  ancient  world.  The 
self-recuperative  powers  of  the  race  have  been 
strengthened  by  the  course  of  its  political  and  reli- 
gious history.  Fresh  blood  adds  new  energy  to 
effete  stocks.  The  effect  of  this  restorative  power 
from  within  is  heightened  in  manifold  ways  by  such 
a  circumstance  as  the  enormous  facilities  of  locomo- 
tion which  have  arisen  during  the  past  two  genera- 
tions. 

In  the  age  of  the  first  conscious  beginnings  of 
Imperial  Britain,  the  communication  between  the 
regions  of  the  empire  was  as  difficult  as  in  the  Rome 
of  Sulla;  but  the  development  of  that  consciousness 
has  been  synchronous,  not  only  with  increased 
intercourse  between  the  ranks  of  the  same  nation, 
but  with  increased  intercourse  between  all  the 
various  climes  of  an  empire  upon  which  the  sun 
never  sets.  From  city  to  city,  from  town  to  town, 
from  province  to  province,  from  colony  to  colony, 
emigration  and  immigration,  change  and  interchange 
of  vast  masses  of  the  population  are  incessant.  This 
increased  intercommunication  between  the  various 


THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN  207 

members  of  the  race,  the  influences  of  the  change 
of  climate  upon  the  individual,  aided  by  such  im- 
perceptible but  many-sided  forces  as  spring  from 
the  diffusion  of  knowledge  and  culture,  mark  a 
revolution  in  the  vital  resources  and  the  environ- 
ment in  the  British,  as  distinguished  from  the 
Saracenic  or  Roman  race,  so  extraordinary  that 
all  analogy  beyond  the  point  which  we  have  indicated 
is  impossible,  or  so  guarded  by  intricate  hypotheses 
as  to  be  useless  or  misleading. 

Nature  seems  pondering  some  vast  and  new  ex- 
periment, and  an  empire  has  arisen  whose  future 
course,  whether  we  consider  its  political  or  its  eco- 
nomic, its  physical  or  its  mental  resources,  leaves 
conjecture  behind.  The  world-stage  is  set  as  for 
the  opening  of  a  drama  which,  at  least  in  the  magni- 
tude of  its  incidents  and  the  imposing  circumstance 
of  -its  action,  will  make  the  former  achievements  of 
men  dwindle  and  seem  of  little  account. 

§  2.       THE   DESTINY  OF   MAN 

At  this  point  we  may  fitly  close  our  survey,  and 
these  "  Reflections/'  by  endeavouring  to  determine, 
not  the  remote  future  of  Imperial  Britain,  but  its 
immediate  task,  Fate's  mandate  to  the  present,  and 
as  we  have  considered  Imperial  Britain  in  its  rela- 
tions to  the  destiny  of  past  empires,  pause  for  a 
moment  in  conclusion  upon  its  relations  to  the  des- 
tiny of  man. 

To  the  ancient  world,  man  in  his  march  across 


208      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

the  deserts  of  Time  had  left  felicity  and  the  golden 
age  far  behind  him,  and  Rousseau's  vision  of  Hu- 
manity as  starting  upon  a  wrong  track,  and  drifting 
ever  farther  from  the  path  of  its  peace,  had  charmed 
the  melancholy  or  the  despair  of  Virgil  and  his  great 
master  in  verse  and  speculation,  Titus  Lucretius. 

This  conception  of  man's  destiny  as  an  infinite 
retrogression,  Eden  receding  behind  Eden,  lost  Para- 
dise behind  lost  Paradise,  in  the  dateless  past,  en- 
counters us,  now  as  a  myth,  now  as  a  religious  or 
philosophic  tenet,  throughout  the  earlier  history  of 
humanity  from  the  Baltic  to  the  Indian  Sea,  from 
the  furthest  Orient  to  the  Western  Isles.  Beside 
this  radiant  past  even  the  vision  of  the  abode  which 
awaits  the  soul  at  death  seems  dusky  and  repellent, 
a  land  of  twilight,  as  in  the  Etruscan  legend,  or  that 
dominion  over  the  shades  which  Achilles  loathed 
beyond  any  mortal  misery. 

But  the  memory  or  the  imagination  of  this  land 
far  behind,  upon  which  Heaven's  light  forever  falls, 
the  Asgard  of  the  Goths,  the  Akkadian  dream  of 
Sin-land  ruled  by  the  Yellow  Emperor,  the  reign 
of  Saturn  and  of  Ops,  diminishes  in  power  and  liv- 
ing energy  as  the  ages  advance,  and,  perishing  at 
last,  is  embalmed  in  the  cold  and  crystal  loveliness 
of  poetry.  In  its  place  bright  mansions,  elysian 
groves,  await  the  soul  at  death.  Heaven  closes 
around  earth  like  a  protecting  smile,  and  from  this 
hope  of  a  recovered  Paradise  and  new  Edens 
amongst  the  stars,  which  to  Dante  and  his  time  are 


THE  DESTINY  OF  MAN  209 

but  the  earth's  appanage,  man  advances  swiftly  to 
the  desire,  the  hope,  the  certainty  of  a  terrestrial 
Paradise  waiting  his  race  in  the  near  or  remote 
future.  Thus,  as  the  immanence  of  the  Divine 
within  the  soul  of  man  has  deepened,  and  the  desire 
of  his  heart  has  grown  nearer  the  desire  of  the 
world-soul,  so  has  the  power  of  memory  decreased 
and  been  transformed  into  hope.  Man,  tossed  from 
illusion  to  illusion,  has  grown  sensitive  to  the  least 
intimations  of  Reality. 

But  these  visions  of  Eden,  whether  located  in  a 
remote  past,  or  in  the  interstellar  spaces,  or  in  the 
near  future,  have  certain  characteristics  in  common. 
From  far  behind  to  far  in  front  the  dream  has 
shifted,  as  if  the  Northern  Lights  had  moved  from 
horizon  to  horizon,  but  it  remains  one  dream.  The 
earthly  Paradise  of  the  social  reformer,  a  Saint- 
Simon  or  a  Fourier,  of  a  world  free  from  war  and 
devoted  to  agriculture  and  commerce,  or  of  the 
philosophic  evolutionist,  of  a  world  peopled  by  my- 
riads of  happy  altruists  bounding  from  bath  to  break- 
fast-room, illumined  and  illumining  by  their  healthy 
and  mutual  smiles,  differs  from  the  earlier  fancies 
of  Asgard  and  the  Isles  of  the  Blest,  not  in  height- 
ened nobility  and  reasonableness,  but  in  diminished 
beauty  and  poetry.  The  dream  of  unending  prog- 
ress is  vain  as  the  dream  of  unending  regress.56 

56  Yet  the  scientific  conception  of  the  destruction  or  decay  of. 
this  whole  star-system  by  fire  or  ice  does  of  itself  turn  prog- 
ress into  a  mockery.  (See  Prof.  C.  A.  Young,  Manual  of 


210      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

Critics  of  literature  and  philosophy  have  often 
remarked  how  sterile  are  the  efforts  to  delineate 
a  state  of  perfect  and  long-continued  bliss,  even 
when  a  Dante  or  a  Milton  undertakes  the  task,  com- 
pared with  delineations  of  torment  and  endless  woe. 
And  Aeschylus  has  remarked,  and  La  Rochefou- 
cauld and  Helvetius  bear  him  out,  how  much  easier 
a  man  finds  the  effort  to  sympathise  with  another's 
misery  than  to  rejoice  in  his  joy. 

Such  contrasts  are  due,  not  to  a  faltering  imagina- 
tion, nor  to  the  depravity  of  the  human  heart. 
They  are  the  recognition  by  the  dark  Unconscious, 
which  in  sincerity  of  vision  ever  transcends  the 
Conscious,  that  in  man's  life  truth  dwells  not  with 
felicity,  that  to  the  soul  imprisoned  in  Time  and 
Space,  whether  amongst  the  stars  or  on  this  earth, 
perfect  peace  is  a  mockery.  But  in  Time,  misery 
is  the  soul's  familiar,  anguish  is  the  gate  of  truth, 
and  the  highest  moments  of  bliss  are,  as  the  Socrates 
of  Plato  affirms,  negative.  They  are  the  moments 
of  oblivion,  when  the  manacles  of  Time  fall  off, 
whether  from  stress  of  agony  or  delight  or  mere 
weariness.  Therefore  with  stammering  lips  man 
congratulates  joy,  but  the  response  of  grief  to  grief 
is  quick  and  from  the  heart,  sanctioned  by  the  Un- 
conscious; therefore  in  the  portraiture  of  Heaven 
art  fails,  but  in  that  of  Hell  succeeds. 

It  is  not  in  Time  that  the  eternal  can  find  rest, 

Astronomy,  p.  571,  and  Prof.  F.  R.  Moulton,  Introduction  to 
Astronomy,  p.  486.) 


MODERN  HISTORY'S  FOUR  AGES      211 

nor  in  Space  that  the  infinite  can  find  repose,  and  as 
illusion  follows  lost  illusion,  the  soul  of  man  does  but 
the  more  completely  realise  the  wonder  ineffable  of 
the  only  reality,  the  Eternal  Now. 

§  3.       THE   FOUR   PERIODS   OF    MODERN    HISTORY 
AND   THEIR   IDEALS 

The  deepening  of  this  conception  of  man's  destiny 
as  beginning  in  the  Infinite  and  in  the  Infinite 
ending,  is  one  of  the  profoundest  and  most  signifi- 
cant features  of  the  present  age.  Its  dominion 
over  art,  literature,  religion,  can  no  longer  escape 
us.  It  is  the  dominant  note  of  the  last  of  the  four 
great  ages  or  epochs  into  which  the  history  of  the 
thought  of  modern  Europe,  in  an  ever-ascending 
scale,  divides  itself.  A  brief  review  of  these  four 
epochs  will  best  prepare  us  for  a  consideration  of  the 
present  position  of  Britain,  and  of  the  relations  of 
its  empire  to  the  actual  conditions  of  Europe  and 
humanity. 

The  First  Age  is  controlled  by  the  Saintly  Ideal. 
The  European  of  that  age  is  a  visionary.  The  un- 
seen world  is  to  him  more  real  than  the  seen,  and 
art  and  poetry  exist  but  to  decorate  the  pilgrimage 
of  the  soul  from  earth  to  heaven.  The  New  Jeru- 
salem which  Tertullian  saw  night  by  night  descend 
in  the  sunset;  the  city  of  God,  whose  shining  battle- 
ments Saint  Augustine  beheld  gleam  through  the 
smoke  of  the  world  conflagration  of  the  era  of 
Alaric  and  Attila,  of  Vandal  and  Goth,  Frank  and 


212      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

Hun ;  the  Day  of  Wrath  and  Judgment  which  later 
times  looked  forward  to  as  certainly  as  to  the  com- 
ing of  spring,  are  but  phases  of  one  pervading  as- 
piration, one  passioning  cry  of  the  soul. 

But  the  illusion  which  lures  on  that  age  fades 
when  the  ascetic  zeal  of  the  saint  is  frustrated  by 
the  joy  of  life,  and  the  crusader's  valour  is  broken 
on  the  Moslem  lances,  and  the  scholastic's  inde- 
fatigable pursuit  of  a  harmonising,  a  reconciling 
word  of  reason  and  of  faith,  his  ardour  not  less 
lofty  than  the  crusader's  to  pierce  the  ever-thicken- 
ing host  of  doubts,  discords,  fears,  fall  all  in  ruins, 
in  accepted  defeat  or  in  formulated  despair 

With  the  Second  Age  a  new  illusion  arises,  the 
Wahn  of  religious  freedom.  The  ideal  which  Rome 
taught  the  world,  upon  which  saint,  crusader,  and 
scholar  built  their  hopes,  turned  to  ashes  —  but 
shall  not  the  human  soul  find  the  haven  of  its  rest  in 
freedom  from  Rome,  in  the  pure  faith  of  primitive 
times?  When  the  last  of  the  scholastics  was  being 
silenced  by  a  papal  edict  and  the  consciousness  of  a 
hopeless  task,  the  first  of  the  new  scholars  was 
ushering  in  the  world-drama  of  four  centuries. 

The  world-historic  significance  of  the  Reforma- 
tion lies  in  the  effort  of  the  European  mind  to  pierce, 
at  least  in  the  sphere  of  Religion,  nearer  to  the  truth. 
The  successive  phases  of  this  struggle  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  vast  tetralogy,  with  a  Prelude  of  which 
the  actors  and  setting  are  Huss  and  Jerome,  the 
Council  of  Constance  and  Sigismund,  the  traitor 


MODERN  HISTORY'S  FOUR  AGES      213 

of  traitors,  who  gave  John  Huss  "  the  word  of  a 
king,"  and  Huss,  solitary  at  the  stake,  when  the 
flames  wrapped  him  round,  learned  the  value  of 
the  word  of  a  king.  Martin  Luther  is  the  protago- 
nist of  the  first  of  the  four  great  dramas  that  follow. 
Its  theme  is  the  consecration  of  man  to  sincerity 
in  his  relations  to  God.  There,  even  at  the  hazard 
of  death,  the  tongue  shall  utter  what  the  heart 
thinks. 

The  second  drama  is  named  Ignatius  Loyola;  the 
theme  is  not  less  absorbing  — "  Art  thou  then  so  sure 
of  the  truth  and  of  thy  sincerity,  O  my  brother?  " 
Whatever  his  followers  may  have  become,  Don 
Inigo  remains  one  of  the  most  baffling  enigmas  that 
historical  psychology  offers.  From  his  grave  he 
rules  the  Council,  and  the  Tridentine  Decrees  are 
the  acknowledgment  of  his  unseen  sovereignty. 

What  tragic  shapes  arise  and  crowd  the  stage  of 
the  third  drama  —  Thurn,  Ferdinand,  Tilly,  Wallen- 
stein,  Richelieu,  Gustavus,  Conde,  Oxenstiern! 
And  when  the  last  actors  of  the  fourth  drama,  the 
conflict  between  moribund  Jesuitism  and  Protes- 
tantism grown  arrogant  and  prosperous,  lay  aside 
their  masks  in  the  world's  great  tiring-room  of 
death,  a  new  Age  in  world-history  has  begun. 

As  religious  freedom  is  the  Wahn  of  the  Refor- 
mation drama,  so  it  is  in  political  freedom  that  the 
Eternal  Illusion  now  incarnates  itself.  Let  man  be 
free,  let  man  throughout  the  earth  attain  the  un- 
fettered use  of  all  his  faculties,  and  heaven's  light 


2i4      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

will  once  more  fill  all  the  dark  places  of  the  world ! 
This  is  the  new  avatar,  this  the  glad  tidings  which 
announce  the  French  Revolution  and  the  Third  Age. 
Of  this  ideal,  the  faith  in  which  the  French  Giron- 
dins  die  is  the  most  perfect  expression.  What  is 
this  faith  for  which  Condorcet  and  his  party  perish, 
some  by  poison,  some  by  the  sword,  some  by  the 
guillotine,  some  in  battle,  but  all  by  violent  deaths 
—  Vergniaud,  Roland,  Barbaroux,  Brissot,  Barnave, 
Gensonne,  Petion,  Buzot,  Isnard  ?  "  Oh  Liberty, 
what  crimes  are  done  in  thy  name ! "  was  not  a  re- 
proach, but,  in  the  gladness  of  the  martyr's  death 
which  consecrated  all  the  life,  it  was  the  wonder, 
the  disquiet  of  a  moment  yet  sure  of  its  peace  in 
some  deeper  reconcilement.  Behold  how  strong  is 
their  faith !  Marie  Antoinette  has  her  faith,  the  in- 
junction of  her  priest,  "  When  in  doubt  or  in  afflic- 
tion, think  of  Calvary."  Yet  the  hair  of  the  Queen 
whitens,  her  spirit  despairs.  The  Girondinist  queen 
climbing  the  scaffold,  not  less  a  lover  of  love  and  of 
life  than  Marie  Antoinette  —  what  nerves  her?  It 
is  the  star  of  the  future  and  the  memory  of  Ver- 
gniaud's  phrase,  "  Posterity  ?  What  have  we  to  do 
with  posterity  ?  Perish  our  memory,  but  let  France 
be  free!" 

How  free  are  their  souls,  what  nobility  shines  in 
the  eyes  of  these  men,  light-stepping  to  their  doom, 
immortally  serene,  these  martyrs,  witnesses  to  an 
ideal  not  less  pure,  not  less  lofty  than  those  other 
two  for  which  saint  and  reformer  died!  And  their 


MODERN  HISTORY'S  FOUR  AGES      215 

battle-march,  which  is  also  their  hymn  of  death: 
Shelley  has  composed  it,  the  choral  chant,  the  vision 
of  the  future  of  the  world,  which  closes  Hellas. 

This  faith,  in  which  the  Girondins  live  and  die 
is  the  hope,  the  faith  that  slowly  arises  in  Europe 
through  the  eighteenth  century,  in  political  freedom 
as  the  regenerator,  as  the  salvation  of  the  world. 
Voltaire  announces  the  coming  of  the  Third  Age  — 
"  Blessed  are  the  young,  for  their  eyes  shall  behold 
it " —  and  upon  the  ruins  of  the  Bastille  Charles 
James  Fox  sees  it  arise.  "  By  how  much,"  he  writes 
to  a  friend,  "  is  not  this  the  greatest  event  in  the 
history  of  the  world!"  Its  presence  shakes  the 
steadfast  heart  of  Goethe  like  a  reed.  Wordsworth, 
Schiller,  Chateaubriand  pledge  themselves  its  hiero- 
phants  —  for  a  time!  The  Wahn  of  freedom,  the 
eternal  illusion,  the  dream  of  the  human  heart! 
First  to  France,  then  to  Europe,  then  to  all  the  earth 
—  Freedom ! 

This  is  the  faith  for  which  the  Girondins  perish, 
and  in  dying  bequeath  to  the  nineteenth  century 
the  theory  of  man's  destiny  which  informs  its  poetry, 
its  speculative  science,  its  systematic  philosophy.  It 
is  the  faith  of  Shelley  and  of  Fichte,  of  Herbart  and 
of  Comte,  of  John  Stuart  Mill,  Lassaulx,  Quinet, 
not  less  than  of  Tennyson,  last  of  the  Girondins. 
For  the  ideal  of  the  Third  Age,  freedom,  knowledge, 
the  federation  of  the  world,  passes  as  the  ideals  of 
the  First  and  of  the  Second  Age  pass.  Not  in  po- 
litical any  more  than  in  religious  freedom  could 


216     DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

man's  unrest  find  a  panacea.  The  new  heavens  and 
the  new  earth  which  Voltaire  proclaimed  vanished 
like  the  city  which  Tertullian  saw  beyond  the  sun- 
set. 

And  knowledge  —  of  what  avail  is  knowledge  ?  — 
or  to  scan  the  abysses  of  space  and  search  the 
depths  of  time?  If  the  utmost  dreams  of  science, 
and  all  the  moral  and  political  aims  of  Girondinism 
were  realised,  if  the  foundations  of  life  and  of  be- 
ing were  laid  bare,  if  the  curve  of  every  star  were 
traced,  its  laws  determined,  and  its  structure  an- 
alysed, if  the  revolutions  of  this  globe  from  its  first 
hour,  and  the  annals  of  all  the  systems  that  wheel 
in  space,  were  by  some  miracle  brought  within  our 
scrutiny  —  it  still  would  leave  the  spirit  unsatisfied 
as  when  these  crystal  walls  did  first  environ  its  infini- 
tude. 

The  defects,  the  nobility,  and  the  beauty  of  the 
ideal  of  the  Third  Age  are  conspicuous  in  the  great 
last  work  of  Condorcet.  As  Mirabeau,  the  intellec- 
tual Catiline  of  his  age,  is  the  protagonist  of  Rebel- 
lion, that  principle  which  has  drawn  the  deepest  ut- 
terances from  the  world-soul,  from  Job  to  Prome- 
theus and  Farinata,  so  Condorcet,  whose  counte- 
nance in  its  high  and  gentle  benevolence  seems  the 
very  expression  of  that  bienfaisance  which  the 
Abbe  de  Saint-Pierre  made  fashionable,  may  be 
styled  the  high-priest  of  Girondinism,  and  he  carries 
his  faith  beyond  the  grave,  hallowing  the  altar  of 
Freedom  with  his  blood.  In  over  a  hundred  pamph- 


MODERN  HISTORY'S  FOUR  AGES      217 

lets  during  the  four  years  of  his  life  as  a  Revolution- 
ist, Condorcet  disseminates  his  ideas  —  fortnightly 
pamphlets,  many  of  them  even  now  worth  reading, 
lighting  up  now  this,  now  that  aspect  of  his  faith  — 
kingship,  slavery,  the  destiny  of  man,  two  Houses, 
assignats,  education  of  the  people,  finance,  the  rights 
of  man,  economics,  free  trade,  the  rights  of  women, 
the  Progress  of  the  Human  Mind.  It  is  in  this  last, 
written  with  the  shadow  of  death  upon  him,  that 
the  central  thought  of  his  system  is  developed.  He 
may  have  derived  it  from  Turgot,57  his  master,  and 
the  subject  of  one  of  his  noblest  biographies,  but 
he  gave  it  a  consecration  of  his  own,  and  later  writ- 
ers have  done  little  more  than  elaborate,  vary,  or 
reduce  to  scientific  rule  and  line  his  living  thought. 
Where  they  most  are  faithful,  there  his  followers 
are  greatest. 

In  the  theory  of  evolution  Condorcet's  princi- 
ples appear  to  find  scientific  expression  and  warrant, 
but  it  is  pathetic  to  observe  the  speculative  science 
of  a  modern  systematiser  advancing  through  volume 
after  volume  with  the  cumbrous  but  massive  force 

57  Condorcet's  biography  (1786)  of  his  master  is  one  of  the 
noblest  works  of  its  class  in  French  literature.  Turgot's  was 
one  of  those  minds  that  like  Chamfort's  or  Villiers  de  L'Isle 
Adam's  scatter  bounteously  the  ideas  which  others  use  or  mis- 
use. The  fogs  and  mists  of  Comte's  portentous  tomes  are  all 
derived,  it  has  often  been  pointed  out,  from  a  few  paragraphs 
of  Turgot.  And  a  fragment  written  by  Turgot  in  his  youth 
inspired  something  of  the  substance  and  even  of  the  title  of 
Condorcet's  great  Esquisse. 


218      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

of  a  traction-engine,  only  to  find  rest  at  last  in  a  vis- 
ion of  Utopia  some  centuries  hence,  tedious  as  the 
Paradise  of  mediaeval  poets  or  the  fabulous  Edens 
of  earlier  times. 

Indeed,  the  conception  of  the  infinite  perfectibil- 
ity of  man,  and  of  an  eternal  progress,  carried  its 
own  doom  in  the  familiar  observation  that  there 
where  progress  can  be  traced,  there  the  divine  is 
least  immanent.  A  distinguished  statesman  and 
writer,  and  a  believer  in  evolution,  recently  avowed 
his  perplexity  that  an  age  like  the  present,  which  has 
invented  steam,  electricity,  and  the  kinematograph, 
should  in  painting  and  poetry  not  surpass  the  Renais- 
sance, nor  in  scultpure  the  age  of  Phidias.  In  such 
perplexity  is  it  not  as  if  one  heard  again  the  threat 
of  Mummius,  charging  his  crew  to  give  good  heed  to 
the  statues  of  Praxiteles,  on  the  peril  of  replacing 
them  if  broken! 

Goethe,  as  the  wrecks  of  his  drama  on  Liberty 
prove,  felt  the  might  of  the  ideal  of  the  Third  Age 
with  all  the  vibrating  emotion  which  genius  imparts.58 

88  References  to  the  power  over  his  mind  of  the  French 
Revolutionary  principles  abound  in  Goethe's  writings.  The 
violence  of  the  first  impression,  which  began  with  the  affair 
of  the  necklace,  had  reached  a  climax  in  '90  and  '91,  and  this, 
along  with  the  ineffaceable  memories  of  the  Werther  and 
Gcetz  period,  which  his  heart  remembered  when  in  his  intel- 
lectual development  he  had  left  it  far  behind,  accounts  in  a 
large  measure  for  his  yielding  temporarily  at  least  to  the  spell 
of  Napoleon's  genius,  and  for  the  studied  but  unaffected  in- 
difference to  German  politics  and  to  the  War  of  Liberation. 
Even  of  1809,  the  year  of  Eckmiihl,  Essling,  and  Wagram, 


MODERN  HISTORY'S  FOUR  AGES      219 

But  he  was  the  first  to  discover  its  hollowness,  and 
bade  the  world,  in  epigram  or  in  prose  tale,  in  lyric 
or  in  drama,  to  seek  its  peace  where  he  himself  had 
found  it,  in  Art.  So  the  labour  of  the  scientific 
theorist,  negatively  beneficent  by  the  impulsion  of 
man's  spirit  beyond  science,  brings  also  a  reward 
of  its  own  to  the  devotee.  The  sun  of  Art  falls 
in  a  kind  of  twilight  upon  his  soul,  working  ob- 
scurely in  words,  and  then  does  he  most  know  the 
Unknowable  when,  in  the  passion  of  self-imposed 
ignorance,  he  rises  to  a  kind  of  eloquence  in  pro- 
claiming its  unknowableness.  Glimmerings  from 
the  Eternal  visit  the  obscure  study  where  the  soul 
in  travail  records  patiently  the  incidents  of  Time,  and 
elaborates  a  theory  of  man's  history  as  if  it  were 
framed  to  end  like  an  Adelphi  melodrama  or  a 
three-volume  novel. 

§  4.       THE   IDEAL   OF   THE    FOURTH    AGE 

But  from  those  very  failures,  those  dissatisfac- 
tions, the  ideal  of  the  Fourth  Age  is  born,  and  the 
law  of  a  greater  progress  divined.  For  the  soul, 
revolting  at  last  against  the  fleeting  illusions  of  time, 
the  deceiving  Edens  of  saint,  reformer,  and  revolu- 
tionist, freedom  from  the  body,  freedom  from  re- 

and  the  darkest  hour  of  German  freedom,  Goethe  can  write: 
"This  year,  considering  the  beautiful  returns  it  brought  me, 
shall  ever  remain  dear  and  precious  to  memory,"  and  when 
the  final  uprising  against  the  French  was  imminent,  he  sought 
quietude  in  oriental  poetry  —  Firdusi,  Hafiz,  and  Nisami. 


220      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

ligious,  or  freedom  from  political  oppression,  sets 
steadily  towards  the  lodestar  of  its  being,  whose 
rising  is  not  in  Time  nor  its  going  down  in  Space. 
Nor  is  it  in  knowledge,  whether  of  the  causes  of 
things,  or  of  the  achievements  of  statesmen,  war- 
riors, legislators,  that  the  peace  of  the  infinite  is 
to  be  found,  but  in  a  vision  of  that  which  was  when 
Time  and  Cause  were  not.  Then  instruction  and 
the  massed  treasures  of  knowledge,  established  or 
theoretic,  concerning  the  past  and  the  future  of  the 
planet  on  which  man  plays  his  part,  or  of  other 
planets  on  which  other  forms  of  being  play  their 
parts,  do  indeed  dissolve  and  are  rolled  together 
like  a  scroll.  The  Timeless,  the  Infinite,  like  a  burst 
of  clear  ether,  an  azure  expanse  washed  of  clouds, 
lures  on  the  delighted  spirit,  tranced  in  ecstasy. 

For  the  symbol  of  this  universe  and  of  man's 
destiny  is  not  the  prolongation  of  a  line,  nor  of 
groups  of  lines  organically  co-ordinate,  but,  as  it 
were,  a  sphere  shapen  from  within  and  moulded  by 
that  Presence  whose  immanence,  ever  intensifying, 
is  the  Thought  which  time  realises  as  the  Deed. 
Man  looks  to  the  future  and  the  coming  of  Eternity. 
How  shall  the  Eternal  come  or  the  Infinite  be  far 
off?  Behold,  the  Eternal  is  now,  and  the  Infinite 
is  here.  And  if  the  high-upreared  architecture  of 
the  stars,  and  the  changing  fabric  of  the  worlds,  be 
but  shadows,  and  the  pageantry  of  time  but  a  dream, 
yet  the  dreamer  and  the  dream  are  God. 

If  all  be  Illusion,  yet  this  faith  that  all  is  Illusion 


THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  FOURTH  AGE      221 

can  be  none.  There  the  realm  of  Illusion  ends,  here 
Reality  begins.  And  thus  the  spirit  of  man,  having 
touched  the  mother-abyss,  arises  victorious  in  defeat 
to  fix  its  gaze  at  last,  steadfast  and  calm,  upon  the 
Eternal. 

Such  is  the  distinction  of  the  Fourth  Age,  whose 
light  is  all  about  us,  flooding  in  from  the  eastern 
windows  yonder  like  a  great  dawn.  Man's  spirit, 
tutored  by  lost  illusion  after  lost  illusion,  advances 
to  an  ever  deeper  reality.  The  race,  too,  like  the 
individual  and  the  nation,  is  subject  to  the  Law  of 
Tragedy.  Once  more,  in  the  way  of  a  thousand 
years,  it  knows  that  it  is  not  in  time,  nor  in  any 
cunning  manipulation  or  extension  of  the  things  of 
time,  that  Man  the  Timeless  can  find  the  word  which 
sums  his  destiny,  and  spurning  the  phantoms  of 
space,  save  as  they  grant  access  to  the  Spaceless, 
casts  itself  back  upon  God,  and  in  art,  thought,  and 
action  pierces  to  the  Infinite  through  the  finite. 

This  mystic  attribute,  this  elan  of  the  soul,  dis- 
covers a  fellowship  in  thinkers  wide  apart  in  circum- 
stance and  mental  environment.  It  is,  for  instance, 
the  trait  which  Schopenhauer,  Tourgenieff,59  Flau- 
bert, and  Carlyle  possess  in  common.60  These  men 

59  Of  his  Contes  Taine  said :    "  Depuis  les  Grecs  aucim  ar- 
tiste n'a  taille  un  camee  litteraire  avec  autant  de  relief,  avec 
une  aussi  rigoureuse  perfection  de  forme." 

60  It  is  remarkable  that  Carlyle  and  Schopenhauer  should 
have  lived  through  four  decades  together  yet  neither  know  in 
any  complete  way  of  the  other's  work.     Carlyle  nowhere  men- 
tions the  name  of  Schopenhauer.     Indeed  Die  Welt  als  Wille 


222      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

are  not  as  others  of  their  time,  but  prophet  voices 
that  announce  the  Fourth,  the  latest  Age,  whose 
dawn  has  laid  its  hand  upon  the  eastern  hills. 

The  restless  imagination  of  Flaubert,  fused  from 
the  blood  of  the  Norsemen,  plunges  into  one  period 
after  another,  Carthage,  the  Rome  of  the  Caesars, 
Syria,  Egypt,  and  Galilee,  the  unchanging  East,  and 
the  monotony  in  change  of  the  West,  pursuing  the 
one  Vision  in  many  forms,  the  Vision  which  leads 
on  Carlyle  from  stage  to  stage  of  a  course  curiously 
similar.  Flaubert  has  a  wider  range  and  more 
varied  sympathies  than  Carlyle,  and  in  intensity  of 
vision  occasionally  surpasses  him.  Both  are  mys- 
tics, visionaries,  from  their  youth ;  but  in  ethics  Flau- 
bert seems  to  attain  at  a  bound  the  point  of  view 

und  Vorstellung,  though  read  by  a  few,  was  practically  an  un- 
known book  both  in  Germany  and  England  until  a  date  when 
Carlyle  was  growing  old,  solitary,  and  from  the  present  ever 
more  detached,  and  new  books  and  new  writers  had  become, 
as  they  were  to  Goethe  in  his  age,  distasteful  or  a  weariness. 
Schopenhauer,  on  the  other  hand,  already  in  the  "thirties," 
had  been  attracted  by  Carlyle's  essays  on  German  literature 
in  the  Edinburgh,  and  though  ignorant  as  yet  of  the  writer's 
name  he  was  all  his  life  too  diligent  a  reader  of  English  news- 
papers and  magazines  to  be  unaware  of  Carlyle's  later  fame. 
But  he  has  left  no  criticism,  nor  any  distinct  references  to 
Carlyle's  teaching,  although  in  his  later  and  miscellaneous 
writings  the  opportunity  often  presents  itself.  Wagner,  it  is 
known,  was  a  student  both  of  Schopenhauer  and  Carlyle. 
Schopenhauer's  proud  injunction,  indeed,  that  he  who  would 
understand  his  writings  should  prepare  himself  by  a  prelimi- 
nary study  of  Plato  or  Kant,  or  of  the  divine  wisdom  of  the 
Upanishads,  indicates  also  paths  that  lead  to  the  higher  teach- 
ing of  Wagner,  and  —  though  in  a  less  degree  —  of  Carlyle. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  FOURTH  AGE     223 

which  the  dragging  years  alone  revealed  to  Carlyle. 

The  chapter  on  the  death  of  Frederick  the  Great 
reads  like  a  passage  from  the  Correspondance  of 
Flaubert  in  his  first  manhood.  In  Saint  Antoine, 
Flaubert  found  the  secret  of  the  same  mystic  in- 
spiration as  Carlyle  found  in  Cromwell.  To  the 
brooding  soul  of  the  hermit,  as  to  that  of  the  war- 
rior of  Jehovah,  what  is  earth,  what  are  the  shapes 
of  time?  Man's  path  is  to  the  Eternal  —  dem 
Grabe  hinan  —  and  from  the  study  of  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1848  Flaubert  arises  with  the  same  embit- 
tered insight  as  marks  the  close  of  "  Frederick  the 
Great." 

And  if,  in  such  later  works  as  Flaubert's  Bouvard 
et  Pecuchet  and  the  Latter-Day  Pamphlets  of  Carlyle, 
only  the  difference  between  the  two  minds  is  appar- 
ent, the  difference  is,  after  all,  but  a  difference  in 
temperament.  It  is  the  contrast  between  the  impas- 
sive aloofness  of  the  artist,  and  the  personal  and 
intrusive  vehemence  of  the  prophet. 

The  structural  thought,  the  essential  emotion  of 
the  two  works  are  the  same  —  the  revolt  of  a  soul 
whose  impulses  are  ever  beyond  the  finite  and  the 
transient,  against  a  world  immersed  in  the  finite 
and  the  transient.  Hence  the  derision,  the  bitter 
scorn,  or  the  laughter  with  which  they  cover  the 
pretensions,  the  hypocrisies,  the  loud  claims  of  mod- 
ern science  and  mechanical  invention.  But  whether 
surveyed  with  contemplative  calm,  or  proclaimed 
with  passionate  remonstrance  to  an  unheeding  gene- 


224      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

ration,  the  life  vision  of  these  two  men  is  one  and 
the  same — "  the  eternities,  the  immensities."  61 

And  this  same  passion  for  the  infinite  is  the  in- 
forming thought  of  Wagner's  tone-dramas  and 
Tschaikowsky's  symphonies.  Love's  mystery  is 
deepened  by  the  mystery  of  death,  and  its  splendour 
has  an  added  touch  by  the  breath  of  the  grave.  The 
desire  of  the  infinite  greatens  the  beauty  of  the  finite 
and  lights  its  sanctuary  with  a  supernatural  radiance. 
All  knowledge  there  becomes  wonder.  Truth  is  not 
known,  but  the  soul  is  there  in  very  deed  possessed 
by  the  Truth,  and  is  one  with  it  eternally. 

Ibsen's  protest  against  limited  horizons,  against 
theorists,  formulists,  social  codes,  conventions,  de- 
rives its  justice  from  the  worthlessness  of  those  con- 

61  The  friendship  of  Tourgenieff  and  Flaubert  rested  upon 
speculative  rather  than  on  artistic  sympathy.  The  Russian 
indeed  never  quite  understood  Flaubert's  "  rage  for  the  word." 
Yet  the  deep  inner  concord  of  the  two  natures  reveals  itself  in 
their  correspondence.  It  was  the  supreme  friendship  of  Flau- 
bert's later  manhood  as  that  with  Bouilhet  was  the  friendship 
of  his  earlier  years.  Yet  they  met  seldom,  and  their  meetings 
often  resembled  those  of  Thoreau  and  Emerson,  as  described 
by  the  former,  or  those  of  Carlyle  and  Tennyson,  when  after 
some  three  hours'  smoking,  interrupted  by  a  word  or  two,  the 
evening  would  end  with  Carlyle's  good-night :  "  Weel,  we 
hae  had  a  grand  nicht,  Alfred."  It  is  in  one  of  Tourgenieff's 
own  prose-poems  that  the  dialogue  of  the  Jungfrau  and  the 
Finsteraarhorn  across  the  centuries  is  darkly  shadowed.  The 
evening  of  the  world  falls  upon  spirits  sensitive  to  its  intima- 
tions as  the  diurnal  twilight  falls  upon  the  hearts  of  travellers 
descending  a  broad  stream  near  the  Ocean  and  the  haven  of 
its  unending  rest. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  THE  FOURTH  AGE     225 

ventions,  codes,  theories,  in  the  light  of  the  infinite. 
The  achievements  in  art  most  distinctive  of  the  pres- 
ent age  —  the  paintings  of  Courbet,  Whistler,  Degas, 
for  instance  —  proclaim  the  same  creative  principle, 
the  unsubstantiality  of  substance,  the  immateriality 
of  matter,  the  mutability  of  all  that  seems  most  fixed, 
the  unreality  of  all  things,  save  that  which  was  once 
the  emblem  of  unreality,  the  play  of  line  and  colour, 
and  their  impression  upon  the  retina  of  the  eye. 
"  If  I  live  to  be  a  hundred,  I  shall  be  able  to  draw  a 
line/'  said  Hokousai.  It  was  as  if  he  had  said,  "  I 
shall  be  able  to  create  a  world." 

The  pressing  effects  of  Imperialism  in  such  an 
environment,  its  swift  influences  upon  the  life  of 
an  age  thus  conditioned,  thus  sharply  defined  from 
all  preceding  ages,  are  of  an  import  which  it  would 
be  hard  to  over-estimate.  The  nation  undowered 
with  such  an  ideal,  menaced  with  extinction  or  with 
a  gradual  depression  to  the  rank  of  a  protected  na- 
tionality, passes  easily,  as  in  France  and  Holland 
and  in  the  higher  grades  of  Russian  society,  to  the 
side  of  political  and  commercial  indifferentism,  of 
artistic  or  literary  cosmopolitanism. 

But  to  a  race  dowered  with  the  genius  for  empire, 
it  rescues  politics  from  the  taint  of  local  or  transient 
designs,  and  imparts  to  public  affairs  and  the  things 
of  State  that  elevation  which  was  their  characteristic 
in  the  Rome  of  Virgil  and  the  England  of  Crom- 
well. For  not  only  the  life  of  the  individual,  but 
the  life  of  States,  is  by  this  conception  robed  in 


226     DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

something  of  its  initial  wonder.  These,  the  indi- 
vidual and  the  State,  as  we  have  seen,  are  but  sep- 
arate phases,  aspects  of  one  thought,  that  thought 
which  in  the  Universe  is  realised. 

And  the  transformations  in  man's  conception  of 
his  relations  to  the  divine  are  in  turn  fraught  with 
consequence  to  the  ideal  of  imperialism  itself.  Life 
is  greatened.  The  ardour  of  the  periods  of  history 
most  memorable  awakens  again  in  man,  the  rever- 
ence of  the  Middle  Age,  the  energy  of  the  Renais- 
sance. A  higher  mood  than  that  of  the  England 
of  Cromwell  has  arisen  upon  the  England  of  to-day. 
Man's  true  peace  is  not  in  the  finite,  but  in  the  in- 
finite; yet  in  the  finite  there  is  a  work  to  be  done, 
with  the  high  disregard  of  a  race  which  looks,  not 
to  the  judgment  of  men,  but  of  angels,  whose  appeal 
is  not  to  the  opinion  of  the  world,  but  of  God. 

Here  at  the  close  of  a  century,  side  by  side  exist- 
ing are  two  ideals,  one  political,  the  other  religious, 
"  a  divine  philosophy  of  the  mind,"  in  Algernon 
Sidney's  phrase  —  how  can  the  issue  and  event  be 
other  than  auspicious  to  this  empire  and  to  this 
generation  of  men  ?  As  Puritanism  seemed  born  for 
the  ideal  of  Constitutional  England,  so  this  ideal  of 
the  Fourth  Epoch  seems  born  to  be  the  faith  of  Im- 
perial England.  Behind  Cromwell's  armies  was  the 
faith  of  Calvin,  the  philosophy  of  the  "  Institutes  " ; 
behind  the  French  Revolution  the  thought  of  Rous- 
seau and  Voltaire;  but  in  this  ideal,  a  thought,  a 
speculative  vision,  deeper,  wider  in  range  than  Cal- 


THE  ACT  AND  THE  THOUGHT      227 

vin's  or  Rousseau's,  is,  with  every  hour  that  passes, 
adding  a  serener  life,  an  energy  more  profound. 


§  5.      THE   "ACT"   AND   THE   "THOUGHT" 

Carlyle's  exaltation  of  the  "  deed "  above  the 
"  word,"  of  action  above  speech,  does  not  exhaust 
its  meaning  in  setting  the  man  of  deeds,  the  soldier 
or  the  politician,  above  the  thinker  or  the  artist. 
It  is  an  affirmation  of  the  glory  of  the  sole  Actor, 
the  Dramatist  of  the  World,  the  Demiowrgos,  whose 
actions  are  at  once  the  deeds  and  the  thoughts  of 
men.  "  Im  An  fang  war  die  That."  The  "  deed  " 
is  nearer  the  eternal  fountain  than  the  "  word  " ; 
though,  on  the  other  hand,  in  this  or  that  work  of 
art  there  may  converge  more  rays  from  the  primal 
source  than  in  this  or  that  deed.  In  painting,  that 
impressionism  which  loves  the  line  for  the  line's  sake, 
the  tint  for  the  tint's  sake,  owes  its  emotion,  sincere 
or  affected,  to  the  same  energy  of  the  same  divine 
thought  as  that  from  which  the  baser  enthusiasm 
of  the  subject-painter  flows.  A  consciousness  of 
the  same  truth  reveals  itself  in  Wagner's  lifelong 
struggle,  splendidly  heroic,  to  weld  the  art  of  arts 
into  living,  pulsing  union  with  the  "  deed,"  the  action 
and  its  setting,  from  which,  in  such  a  work  as  Tris- 
tan, or  as  Parsifal,  that  art's  ecstasy  or  mystery  de- 
rives. 

In  the  great  crises  of  the  world  the  preliminary 
actions  have  always  been  indefinite,  hesitating,  or 
obscure.  Indefiniteness  is  far  from  proving  the 


228      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

insincerity  or  transiency  of  Imperialism  as  an  ideal. 
"  A  man/'  says  Oliver  Cromwell,  "  never  goes  so  far 
as  when  he  does  not  know  whither  he  is  going." 
What  Cromwell  meant  was  that,  in  the  great  hours 
of  life,  the  supernatural,  the  illimitable,  thrusts 
itself  between  man  and  the  limited,  precise  ends 
of  common  days.  Upon  such  a  subject  Cromwell 
has  the  right  to  speak.  Great  himself,  he  was  the 
cause  of  the  greatness  that  was  in  others.  But  in 
all  things  it  was  still  Jehovah  that  worked  in  him. 
Deeply  penetrated  with  this  belief,  Cromwell  had 
the  gift  of  making  his  armies  live  his  life,  think  his 
thought.  Each  soldier,  horse  or  foot,  was  a  warrior 
of  God. 

Man's  severing,  isolating  intelligence  is  in  these 
moments  merged  in  the  divine  intelligence;  but  in 
subjection,  then  is  it  most  free.  The  conscious 
is  lost  in  the  unconscious  force  which  works  behind 
the  world.  The  individual  will  stands  aside.  The 
Will  of  the  universe  advances.  Precision  of  design 
and  purpose  are  shrouded  in  that  dark  background 
of  Greek  tragedy,  on  which  the  forms  of  gods  and 
heroes,  in  mortal  or  immortal  beauty,  were  sketched, 
subject  in  all  their  doings  to  this  high,  dread,  and 
austere  power. 

So  of  empires,  of  races,  and  of  nations.  A  race 
never  goes  so  far  as  when  it  knows  not  whither  it  is 
going,  when,  rising  in  the  consciousness  of  its  des- 
tiny at  last,  and  seeing  as  yet  but  a  little  way  in  front, 
it  advances,  performs  that  task  as  if  it  were  its  final 


THE  ACT  AND  THE  THOUGHT      229 

task,  as  if  no  other  task  was  reserved  for  it  by  time 
or  by  nature.  Consciousness  of  destiny  is  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  will  of  God  and  of  the  divine 
purposes.  It  is  the  identity  of  the  desire  of  the  race 
with  the  desire  of  the  world-soul,  and  it  moves 
towards  its  goal  with  the  motion  of  tides  and  of 
planets. 

Therefore  when  in  thought  we  summon  up  re- 
membrance of  those  empires  of  the  past,  Assyria, 
Egypt,  Babylon,  Hellas,  Rome,  and  Islam,  or  those 
empires  of  nearer  times,  Charles's,  Napoleon's, 
Akbar's,  when  we  throw  ourselves  back  in  imagina- 
tion across  the  night  of  time,  endeavouring  to  live 
through  their  revolutions,  and  front  with  each  in 
turn  the  black  portals  of  the  future  —  what  image 
is  this  which  of  itself  starts  within  the  mind?  Is 
it  not  the  procession  of  the  gladiators  and  the  amphi- 
theatre of  Rome? 

Rome  beyond  all  races  had  the  instinct  of  tragic 
grandeur  in  state  and  public  life,  and  by  that  instinct 
even  her  cruelty  is  at  times  elevated  through  the 
pageantry  or  impressive  circumstance  amid  which 
it  is  enacted.  Does  not  this  vault  then,  arching 
above  us,  appear  but  as  a  vast  amphitheatre?  And 
towards  the  mortal  arena  the  empires  of  the  world, 
one  by  one,  defile  past  the  high-upreared,  (Jark,  and 
awful  throne  where  sits  Destiny  —  the  phalanx  of 
Macedon,  the  Roman  legion,  the  black  banner  of 
the  Abbassides,  the  jewelled  mail  of  Akbar's  chiv- 


230      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

airy,  and  the  Ottoman's  crescent  moon.  And  their 
resolution,  serene,  implacable,  sublime,  is  the  resolu- 
tion of  the  gladiators,  "  Ave,  imperator,  moritnri 
te  salutant!  Hail,  Caesar,  those  about  to  die  salute 
thee!" 

And  when  the  vision  sinks,  dissolving,  and  night 
has  once  more  within  its  keeping  cuirass  and  spear 
and  the  caparisons  of  war,  the  oppressed  mind  is 
beset  as  by  a  heavy  sound,  gathering  up  from  the 
abysses,  deeper,  more  dread  and  mysterious  than 
the  death-march  of  heroes  —  the  funeral  march  of 
the  empires  of  the  world,  the  requiem  of  faiths,  dead 
yet  not  dead,  of  creeds,  institutions,  religions,  gov- 
ernments, laws  —  till  through  Time's  shadows  the 
Eternal  breaks,  in  silence  sweeter  than  all  music,  in 
a  darkness  beyond  all  light. 

§  6.     BRITAIN'S  WORLD-MISSION  :  THE  WITNESS 

OF  THE  DEAD  TO  THE  MANDATE  OF  THE 
PRESENT 

Yet  with  a  resolution  as  deep-hearted  as  the  glad- 
iator's it  is  for  another  cause  and  unto  other  ends 
that  the  empires  of  the  world  have  striven,  ful- 
filled their  destiny  and  disappeared,  that  this  Em- 
pire of  Britain  now  strives,  fulfilling  its  destiny. 
Fixed  in  her  resolve,  the  will  of  God  behind  her, 
whither  is  her  immediate  course?  The  narrow 
space  of  the  path  in  front  of  her  that  is  discernible 
even  dimly  —  whither  does  it  tend  or  appear  to  tend  ? 

Empires  are  successive  incarnations  of  the  Divine 


BRITAIN'S  WORLD  MISSION        231 

ideas,  and  by  a  principle  which,  in  its  universality 
and  omnipotence  in  the  frame  of  Nature,  seems  it- 
self an  attribute  of  the  Divine,  the  principle  of  con- 
flict, these  ideas  realise  their  ends  in  and  through  con- 
flict. The  scientific  form  which  it  assumes  in  the 
hypothesis  of  evolution  is  but  the  pragmatic  expres- 
sion of  this  mystery.  Here  is  the  metaphysical  basis 
of  the  Law  of  Tragedy,  the  profoundest  law  in  hu- 
man life,  in  human  art,  in  human  action.  And 
thus  that  law,  which,  as  I  pointed  out,  throws  a  vivid 
light  upon  the  first  essential  transformation  in  the 
life-history  of  a  State  dowered  with  empire,  offers 
us  its  aid  in  interpreting  the  last  transformation  of 
all. 

The  higher  freedom  of  man  in  the  world  of  action, 
and  reverie  in  the  domain  of  thought,  are  but  two 
aspects  of  the  idea  which  Imperial  Britain  incar- 
nates, just  as  Greek  freedom  and  beauty  were  aspects 
of  the  idea  incarnate  in  Hellas. 

The  spaces  of  the  past  are  strewn  with  the  wrecks 
of  dead  empires,  as  the  abysses  where  the  stars 
wander  are  strewn  with  the  dust  of  vanished  sys- 
tems, sunk  without  a  sound  in  the  havoc  of  the  aeons. 
But  the  Divine  presses  on  to  ever  deeper  realisa- 
tions, alike  through  vanished  races  and  through 
vanished  universes. 

Britain  is  laying  the  foundations  of  States  unborn, 
civilisations  undreamed  till  now,  as  Rome  in  the  days 
of  Tacitus  was  laying  the  foundations  of  States  and 
civilisations  unknown,  and  by  him  darkly  imagined. 


232      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

For  Justice  men  turn  to  the  State  in  which  Justice 
has  no  altar,62  Freedom  no  temple;  but  a  higher 
than  Justice,  and  a  greater  than  Freedom,  has  in 
that  State  its  everlasting  seat.  Throughout  her 
bounds,  in  the  city  or  on  the  open  plain,  in  the 
forest  or  in  the  village,  under  the  tropic  or  in  the 
frozen  zone,  her  subjects  shall  find  Justice  and  Free- 
dom as  the  liberal  air,  so  that  enfranchised  thus,  and 
the  unfettered  use  of  all  his  faculties  secured,  each 
may  fulfil  his  being's  supreme  law. 

The  highest-mounted  thought,  the  soul's  complete 
attainment,  like  the  summits  of  the  hills,  can  be  the 
possession  only  of  the  few,  but  the  paths  that  lead 
thither  this  empire  shall  open  to  the  daring  climber. 
Humanity  has  left  the  Calvinist  and  Jacobin  behind. 
And  thus  Britain  shall  become  the  name  of  an  ideal 
as  well  as  the  designation  of  a  race,  the  description 
of  an  attitude  of  mind  as  well  as  of  traits  of  blood. 

Europe  has  passed  from  the  conception  of  an 
outwardly  composed  unity  of  religion  and  govern- 
ment to  the  conception  of  the  inner  unity  which  is 
compatible  with  outward  variations  in  creeds,  in 
manners,  in  religions,  in  social  institutions.  Har- 
mony, not  uniformity,  is  Nature's  end. 

Dante,  as  the  years  advanced  and  the  poet  within 
him  thrust  aside  the  Ghibelline  politician,  the  author 
of  the  De  Monarchia,  discerned  this  ever  more 
clearly.  Contemplating  the  empires  of  the  past,  he 
felt  the  Divine  mystery  there  incarnate  as  pro- 

62  Cf.  Philostratus,  Life  of  Appollonius.    I.  28. 


BRITAIN'S  WORLD  MISSION        233 

foundly  as  Polybius.  In  the  fourteenth  century 
he  dares  to  see  in  the  Roman  people  a  race  not  less 
divinely  missioned  than  the  Hebrew.  Though  con- 
temporary of  the  generation  whose  fathers  had  seen 
the  Inquisition  founded,  yet  like  an  Arab  soufi, 
Dante,  the  poet  of  mediae  valism,  points  to  the  spot 
of  light  far-off,  insufferably  radiant,  yet  infinitely 
minute,  the  source  and  centre  of  all  faiths,  all  creeds, 
all  religions,  of  this  universe  itself,  and  all  the  de- 
sires of  men.  In  an  age  which  silenced  the  scholas- 
tics he  founded  Hell  in  the  Ethics  of  Aristotle,  as 
on  a  traced  plan,  and  he  who  in  his  childhood  had 
heard  the  story  of  the  great  defeat,  and  of  the  last 
of  the  crusading  kings  borne  homewards  on  his 
bier,  dares  crest  his  Paradise  with  the  dearest  images 
of  Arab  poetry,  the  loveliness  of  flame  and  the  sweet- 
ness of  the  rose. 

What  does  this  import,  unless  that  already  the 
mutual  harmonies  of  the  wide  earth  and  of  the  stars 
had  touched  his  listening  soul,  that  already  he  who 
stayed  to  hear  Casella  sing  heard  far  off  a  diviner 
music,  the  tones  of  the  everlasting  symphony  played 
by  the  great  Musician  of  the  World,  the  chords 
whereof  are  the  deeds  of  empires,  the  achievements 
of  the  heroes  of  humanity,  and  its  most  mysterious 
cadences  are  the  thoughts,  the  faiths,  the  loftiest 
utterances  of  the  mind  of  man? 

And  to  the  present  age,  what  an  exhortation  is 
implicit  in  this  thought  of  Dante's!  No  unity,  no 
bond  amongst  men  is  so  strong  as  that  which  is 


234      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

based  on  religion.  Patriotism,  class  prejudices,  ties 
of  affection,  all  break  before  its  presence.  What  a 
light  is  cast  upon  the  deeper  places  of  the  human 
heart  by  the  history  of  Jesuitism  in  the  seventeenth 
century !  Genius  for  religion  is  rare  as  other  forms 
of  genius  are  rare,  yet  both  in  the  life  of  the  indi- 
vidual and  of  the  State  its  rank  is  primary.  In 
the  soul,  religion  marks  the  meridian  of  the  divine. 
By  its  remoteness  from  or  nearness  to  this  the  value 
of  all  else  in  life  is  tested.  And  there  is  nothing 
which  a  race  will  not  more  willingly  surrender  than 
its  religion.  The  race  which  changes  its  religion  is 
either  very  young,  quick  to  reverence  a  greater  race, 
and  ardent  for  all  experiment,  or  very  old,  made 
indifferent  by  experience  or  neglectful  by.  despair. 

In  the  conception  at  which  she  has  at  last  arrived, 
and  in  her  present  attitude  towards  this  force,  Brit- 
ain may  justly  claim  to  represent  humanity.  She 
combines  the  utmost  reverence  for  her  own  faith 
with  sympathetic  intelligence  for  the  faiths  of  others. 
And  confronting  her  at  this  hour  of  the  world's 
history  is  a  task  higher  than  the  task  of  Akbar,  and 
more  auspicious.  Akbar's  design  was  indeed  lofty, 
and  worthy  of  that  great  spirit ;  but  it  was  a  hopeless 
design.  The  forms,  the  creeds  which  have  been  im- 
posed from  without  upon  a  religion  are  no  integral 
part  of  that  religion's  life.  Even  when  by  the 
progress  of  the  years  they  have  become  transfused 
by  the  formative  influences  which  time  and  the  suf- 
ferings or  the  hopes  of  men  supply,  they  change  or 


BRITAIN'S  WORLD  MISSION        235 

are  cast  aside  without  organic  convulsion  or  menace 
to  the  life  itself.  But  the  forms  and  embodiments 
which  a  divine  thought  in  the  process  of  its  own 
irresistible  and  mighty  growth  assumes  —  these  are 
beyond  the  touch  o-f  outer  things,  and  evade  the 
shaping  hand  of  man.  Inseparable  from  the  thought 
which  they,  as  it  were,  reincarnate,  their  life  changes 
but  with  its  life,  and  together  they  recede  into  the 
divine  whence  they  came.  The  effort  to  extract  the 
inmost  truth,  tearing  away  the  form  which  by  an 
obscure  yet  inviolate  process  has  crystallised  around 
it,  is  like  breaking  a  statue  to  discover  the  loveliness 
of  its  loveliness.  Akbar  would  have  as  quickly 
reached  the  creative  thought,  the  idea  enshrined  in 
the  Athene  of  Phidias,  the  immortal  cause  of  its 
power,  by  destroying  the  form,  as  have  severed  the 
divine  thought  immanent  in  the  Magian  or  Hindoo 
faiths  from  their  integral  embodiments. 

But  a  greater  task  awaits  Britain.  Among  the 
races  of  the  earth  whose  fate  is  already  dependent, 
or  within  a  brief  period  will  be  dependent  upon 
Europe,  what  empire  is  to  aid  them,  moving  with 
nature,  to  attain  that  harmony  which  Dante  dis- 
cerned? What  empire,  disregarding  the  mediaeval 
ideal,  the  effort  to  impose  upon  them  systems,  rites, 
institutions,  creeds,  to  which  they  are  by  nature, 
by  their  history,  by  inherited  pride  in  the  traditions 
of  the  past,  hostile  or  invincibly  opposed,  will  ad- 
venture the  new,  the  loftier  enterprise  of  develop- 
ment all  that  is  permanent  and  divine  within  their 


236      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

own  civilisations,  institutions,  rites,  and  creeds? 
Nature  and  the  dead  shall  lend  their  unseen  but 
mighty  alliance  to  such  purposes!  Thus  will  Brit- 
ain turn  to  the  uses  of  humanity  the  valour  or  the 
fortune  which  has  brought  the  religions  of  India 
and  the  power  of  Islam  beneath  her  sway. 

The  continents  of  the  world  no  longer  contain 
isolated  races  severed  from  each  other  by  the  bar- 
riers of  nature,  mutual  ignorance,  or  the  artifices 
of  man,  but  vast  masses,  moving  into  ever-deepening 
intimacies,  imitations,  mutually  influenced  and  influ- 
encing. Man  grows  conscious  to  himself  as  one, 
and  to  represent  this  consciousness  on  the  round 
earth,  as  Rome  did  once  represent  it  on  this  half  the 
world,  to  be  amongst  the  races  of  all  the  earth  what 
Hildebrand  dreamed  the  Normans  might  be  amongst 
the  nations  of  Europe,  is  not  this  a  task  exalted 
enough  to  quicken  the  most  sluggish  zeal,  the  most 
retrogfade  "  patriotism  "  ?  For  without  such  medi- 
ation, misunderstanding,  envy,  hate,  mistrust  still 
erect  barriers  between  the  races  of  mankind  more 
impassable  than  continents  or  seas  or  the  great  wall 
of  Ch'in  Chi.  This  is  a  part  not  for  the  future 
merely,  it  is  one  to  which  Britain  is  already  by  her 
past  committed.  The  task  is  great,  for  between 
civilisation  and  barbarism,  the  vanguard  and  the 
rearguard  of  humanity,  suspicion,  rivalry,  and  war 
are  undying.  From  this  the  Greek  division  of  man- 
kind into  Hellenes  and  Barbarians  derives  whatever 
justice  it  possesses. 


BRITAIN'S  WORLD  MISSION        237 

In  those  directions  and  towards  those  high  endeav- 
ours amongst  the  subjects  within  her  own  dominion, 
and  thence  amongst  the  races  and  religions  of  the 
world,  the  short  space  that  is  illumined  of  the  path 
in  front  of  Britain  does  unmistakably  lead.  Every 
year,  every  month  that  passes,  is  fraught  with  im- 
port of  the  high  and  singular  destiny  which  awaits 
this  realm,  this  empire,  and  this  race.  The  actions, 
the  purposes  of  other  empires  and  races,  seem  but  to 
illustrate  the  actions,  the  purposes  of  this  empire, 
and  the  distinction  of  its  relations  to  Humanity. 

Faithful  to  her  past,  in  conflict  for  this  high  cause, 
if  Britain  fall,  it  will  at  leas*  be  as  that  hero  of  the 
Iliad  fell,  "  do-ing  some  memorable  thing."  Were 
not  this  nobler  than  by  overmuch  wisdom  to  incur 
the  taunt,  pr-opter  mi  am  vivendi  perdere  causas,  or 
that  cast  by  Dante  at  him  who  to  fate's  summons 
returned  "  the  great  refusal/'  a  Dio  spiacenti  ed 
a-nemici  sui,  "  hateful  to  God  and  to  the  enemies  of 
God  "  ?  The  nations  of  the  earth  ponder  our  action 
at  this  crisis,  and  by  our  vacillation  or  resolution 
they  are  uplifted  or  dejected;  whilst,  in  their  invis- 
ible abodes,  the  spirits  of  the  dead  of  our  race  are 
in  suspense  till  the  hazard  be  made  and  the  glorious 
meed  be  secured,  in  triumph  or  defeat,  to  eternity. 

There  are  crises  in  history  when  it  is  not  merely 
fitting  to  remember  the  dead.  Their  deeds  live  with 
us  continually,  and  are  not  so  much  things  remem- 
bered, as  integral  parts  of  our  life,  moulding  the 
thought  of  every  hour.  In  such  crises  a  Senate 


238      DESTINY  OF  IMPERIAL  BRITAIN 

of  the  dead  were  the  truest  counsellors  of  the  living, 
for  they  alone  could  with  convincing  eloquence  plead 
the  cause  of  the  past  and  of  the  generations  that 
are  not  yet.  Warriors,  crusaders,  patriots,  states- 
men-soldiers or  statesmen-martyrs,  it  was  for  things 
which  are  not  yet  that  they  died,  and  to  an  end 
which,  though  strongly  trusting,  they  but  dimly  dis- 
cerned that  they  laid  the  foundations  of  this  Em- 
pire. Masters  of  their  own  fates,  possessors  of 
their  own  lives,  they  gave  them  lightly  as  pledges 
unredeemed,  and  for  men  and  things  of  which  they 
were  not  masters  or  possessors.  But  they  set  higher 
store  on  glory  than  on  life,  and  valued  great  deeds 
above  length  of  days.  They  loved  their  country, 
dying  for  it,  yet  did  it  seem  as  if  it  were  less  for 
England  than  for  that  which  is  the  excellence  of 
man's  life  and  the  very  emergence  of  the  divine 
within  such  life,  that  they  fought  and  fell.  And 
this  great  inheritance  of  fame  and  of  valour  is  but 
ours  on  trust,  the  fief  inalienable  of  the  dead  and  of 
the  generations  to  come. 

And  now,  behold  from  their  martyr  graves  Rus- 
sell, Sidney,  Eliot  arise,  and  with  phantom  fingers 
beckon  England  on !  From  the  fields  of  their  fate 
and  their  renown,  see  Talbot  and  Falkland,  Wolfe 
and  de  Montfort  arise,  regardful  of  England  and  her 
action  at  this  hour.  And  lo!  gathering  up  from 
the  elder  centuries,  a  sound  like  a  trumpet-call,  clear- 
piercing,  far-borne,  mystic,  ineffable,  the  call  to 
battle  of  hosts  invisible,  the  mustering  armies  of 


BRITAIN'S  WORLD  MISSION        239 

the  dead,  the  great  of  other  wars  —  Brunanburh 
and  Senlac,  Cregy,  Flodden,  Blenheim  and  Trafal- 
gar. Their  battle-cries  await  our  answer  —  the 
chivalry's  at  Agincourt,  "  Heaven  for  Harry,  Eng- 
land and  St.  George !  ",  Cromwell's  war-shout,  which 
was  a  prayer,  at  Dunbar,  "The  Lord  of  Hosts! 
The  Lord  of  Hosts !  " —  these  await  our  answer,  that 
response  which  by  this  war  we  at  last  send  ringing 
down  the  ages,  "  God  for  Britain,  Justice  and  Free- 
dom to  the  world !  " 

Such  witness  of  the  dead  is  both  a  challenge  and 
a  consolation;  a  challenge,  to  guard  this  heritage 
of  the  past  with  the  chivalry  of  the  future,  nor  bate 
one  jot  of  the  ancient  spirit  and  resolution  of  our 
race;  a  consolation,  in  the  reflection  that  from  a 
valour  at  once  so  remote  and  so  near  a  degenerate 
race  can  hardly  spring. 

With  us,  let  me  repeat,  the  decision  rests,  with 
us  and  with  this  generation.  Never  since  on  Sinai 
God  spoke  in  thunder  has  mandate  more  imperative 
been  issued  to  any  race,  city,  or  nation  than  now  to 
this  nation  and  to  this  people.  And,  again,  if  we 
should  hesitate,  or  if  we  should  decide  wrongly,  it 
is  not  the  loss  of  prestige,  it  is  not  the  narrowed 
bounds  we  have  to  fear,  it  is  the  judgment  of  the 
dead  and  the  despair  of  the  living,  of  the  inarticu- 
late myriads  who  have  trusted  to  us,  it  is  the  arraign- 
ing eyes  of  the  unborn. 


PART  III 

NINTEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 
A  SURVEY  OF  POLITICAL  EVENTS  AND  TENDENCIES 


CHAPTER  VIII 

§  I.       DOMINION    OF   THE   IDEAL   OF  LIBERTY 

IN  Europe,  as  the  year  1800  dragged  to  its  bloody 
close,  and  the  fury  of  the  conflict  between  the 
Monarchies  and  the  Revolution  was  for  a  time  stilled 
on  the  fields  of  Marengo  and  Hohenlinden,  men 
then,  as  now,  discussed  the  problems  of  the  relation 
of  a  century's  end  to  the  determining  forces  of  hu- 
man history;  then,  as  now,  men  remarked  half  re- 
gretfully, half  mockingly,  how  pallid  had  grown  the 
light  which  once  fell  from  the  years  of  Jubilee  of 
mediaeval  or  Hebrew  times ;  and  then,  as  now,  critics 
of  a  lighter  or  more  positive  vein  debated  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  coming  year  were  the  first  or  sec- 
ond of  the  new  century,  pointing  out  that  between 
the  last  year  of  a  century  and  man's  destiny  there 
could  be  no  intimate  connection,  that  all  the  eras 
were  equally  arbitrary,  equally  determined  by  local 
or  accidental  calculations,  that  the  century  which 
was  closing  over  the  Christian  world  had  but  run 
half  its  course  to  the  Mohammedan.  Yet  in  one 
deep  enough  matter  the  mood  of  the  Europe  of  1800 
differs  significantly  from  the.  mood  of  the  Europe 
of  1900.  Whatever  the  division  in  men's  minds  as 

243 


244     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

to  the  relation  between  the  close  of  the  century  and 
a  race's  history,  and  the  precise  moment  at  which  the 
old  century  ends  and  the  new  begins,  one  thing 
in  1800  was  radiantly  clear  to  all  men  —  the  glory 
and  the  wonder,  the  endless  peace  and  felicity  not 
less  endless,  which  the  opening  century  and  the  new 
age  dimly  portended  or  securely  promised  to  hu- 
manity. The  desert  march  of  eighteen  hundred 
years  was  ended;  the  promised  land  was  in  sight. 
The  poet's  voice  from  the  Cumberland  hills,  "  Bliss 
was  it  in  that  dawn  to  be  alive  "  traversed  the  North 
Sea,  and  beyond  the  Rhine  was  swelled  by  a  song 
more  majestic  and  not  less  triumphant : 

Froh,  wie  seine  Sonnen  fliegen, 
Durch  des  Himmels  pracht'gen  Plan, 
Wandelt,  Briider,  cure  Bahn, 
Freudig,  wie  ein  Held  zum  Siegen, 

and,  passing  the  Alps  and  the  Vistula,  died  in  a 
tumultuous  hymn  of  victory  long  hoped  for,  of  joy 
long  desired,  of  freedom  long  despaired  of,  in  the 
cities  of  Italy,  the  valleys  of  Greece,  the  plains  of 
Poland,  and  the  Russian  steppes.  Since  those  days 
three  generations  have  arisen,  looked  their  last  upon 
the  sun,  and  passed  to  their  rest,  and  in  what  another 
mood  does  Europe  now  confront  the  opening  cen- 
tury and  the  long  vista  to  its  years !  Man  presents 
himself  no  more  as  he  was  delineated  by  the  poets 
of  1800.  Not  now  does  man  appear  to  the  poet's 
vision  as  mild  by  suffering  and  by  freedom  strong, 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  245 

rising  like  some  stately  palm  on  the  century's  verge ; 
but  to  the  highest-mounted  minds  in  Russia,  Ger- 
many, France,  Norway,  Italy,  man  presents  himself 
like  some  blasted  pine,  a  thunder-riven  trunk,  totter- 
ing on  the  brink  of  the  abyss,  whilst  far  below  rave 
the  darkness  and  the  storm-drift  of  the  worlds. 
From  what  causes  and  by  the  operation  of  what  laws 
has  the  great  disillusion  fallen  upon  the  heart  of 
Europe?  Whither  are  vanished  the  glorious  hopes 
with  which  the  century  opened  ?  Is  it  final  despair, 
this  mood  in  which  it  closes,  or  is  it  but  the  tempo- 
rary eclipse  which  hides  some  mightier  hope,  a  new 
incarnation  of  the  spirit  of  the  world,  some  yet  se- 
rener  endeavour,  radiant  and  more  enduring,  wider 
in  its  range  and  in  its  influences  pro  founder  than 
that  of  1789,  of  1793,  or  of  the  year  of  Hohenlinden 
and  Marengo? 

In  the  year  1800,  from  the  Volga  to  the  Irish  Sea, 
from  the  sunlit  valleys  of  Calabria  to  the  tormented 
Norwegian  fiords,  there  was  in  every  European 
heart  capable  of  interests  other  than  egoistical  and 
personal  one  word,  one  hope,  ardent  and  unconquer- 
able. That  word  was  "  Freedom  " —  freedom  to 
the  serf  from  the  fury  of  the  boyard,  to  the  thralls 
who  toiled  and  suffered  throughout  the  network  of 
principalities,  kingdoms,  and  duchies,  named  "  Ger- 
many " ;  freedom  to  the  negro  slave;  freedom  to  the 
newer  slaves  whom  factories  were  creating ;  freedom 
to  Spain  from  the  Inquisition,  from  the  tyranny  and 
shame  of  Charles  IV  and  Godoy ;  freedom  to  Greece 


246      NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

from  the  yoke  of  the  Ottoman;  to  Italy  from  the 
slow,  unrelenting  oppression  of  the  Austrian;  free- 
dom to  all  men  from  the  feudal  State  and  the 
feudal  Church,  from  civic  injustice  and  political 
disfranchisement,  from  the  immeasurable  wrongs  of 
the  elder  centuries!  A  new  religion,  heralded  by 
a  new  evangel,  that  of  Diderot  and  Montesquieu, 
Lessing,  Beccaria,  and  Voltaire,  and  sanctified  by 
the  blood  of  new  martyrs,  the  Girondins,  offered 
itself  to  the  world.  But  as  if  man,  schooled  by 
disillusionment,  and  deceived  in  the  fifteenth  and 
in  the  seventeenth  centuries,  trembled  now  lest  this 
new  hope  should  vanish  like  the  old,  he  sought  a 
concrete  symbol  and  a  reasoned  basis  for  the  intoxi- 
cating dream.  Therefore,  he  spoke  the  word 
"  Liberty  "  like  a  challenge,  and  as  sentinel  answers 
sentinel,  straight  there  came  the  response,  whispered 
in  his  own  breast,  or  boldly  uttered  — "  France  and 
Bonaparte."  Since  the  death  of  Mohammed,  no 
single  life  had  so  centred  upon  itself  the  deepest 
hopes  and  aspirations  of  men  of  every  type  of  genius, 
intellect,  and  character.  Chateaubriand,  returning 
from  exile,  offers  him  homage,  and  in  the  first  year 
of  the  century  dedicates  to  him  his  Genie  du  Chris- 
tianisme,  that  work  which,  after  La  Nouvelle  Helo- 
'ise,  most  deeply  moulded  the  thought  of  France  in 
the  generation  which  followed.  And  in  that  year, 
Beethoven  throws  upon  paper,  under  the  name 
"  Bonaparte,"  the  first  sketches  of  his  mighty  sym- 
phony, the  serenest  achievement  in  art,  save  the 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  247 

Prometheus  of  Shelley,  that  the  Revolutionary  epoch 
has  yet  inspired.  In  that  year,  at  Weimar,  Schiller, 
at  the  height  of  his  enthusiasm,  is  repelled,  as  he 
had  been  in  the  first  ardour  of  their  friendship,  by 
the  aloofness  or  the  disdain  of  the  greater  poet. 
Yet  Goethe  did  most  assuredly  feel  even  then  the 
spell  of  Napoleon's  name.  And  in  that  year,  the 
greatest  of  English  orators,  Charles  James  Fox, 
joined  with  the  Russian  Czar,  Paul,  with  Canova, 
the  most  exquisite  of  Italian  sculptors,  and  with 
Hegel,  the  most  brilliant  of  German  metaphysicians, 
in  offering  the  heart's  allegiance  to  this  sole  man  for 
the  hopes  his  name  had  kindled  in  Europe  and  in 
the  world.  To  the  calmer  devotion  of  genius  was 
added  the  idolatrous  enthusiasm  of  the  peoples  of 
France,  Italy,  Germany.  And,  indeed,  since  Mo- 
hammed, no  single  mind  had  united  within  itself 
capacities  so  various  in  their  power  over  the  imagina- 
tions of  men  —  an  energy  of  will,  swift,  sudden, 
terrifying  as  the  eagle's  swoop;  the  prestige  of  deeds 
which  in  his  thirtieth  year  recalled  the  youth  of 
Alexander  and  the  maturer  actions  of  Hannibal  and 
Caesar;  an  imaginative  language  which  found  for 
his  ideas  words  that  came  as  from  a  distance,  like 
those  of  Shakespeare  or  Racine;  and  within  his  own 
heart  a  mystic  faith,  deep-anchored,  immutable, 
tranquil,  when  all  around  was  trouble  and  disarray 
—  the  calm  of  a  spirit  habituated  to  the  Infinite,  and 
familiar  with  the  deep  places  of  man's  thought  from 
his  youth  upwards.  Yes,  Mirabeau  was  long  dead, 


248     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

and  Danton,  Marat,  and  Saint-Just,  and  but  three 
years  ago  the  heroic  Lazare  Hoche,  richly  gifted  in 
politics  as  in  war,  had  been  struck  down  in  the  noon- 
tide of  his  years;  but  now  a  greater  than  Mirabeau, 
Hoche,  or  Danton  was  here.  If  the  December  sun 
of  Hohenlinden  diverted  men's  minds  to  Moreau, 
the  victor,  it  was  but  for  a  moment.  In  the  uni- 
versal horror  and  joy  with  which  on  Christmas  Day, 
1800,  the  rumour  of  the  explosion  and  failure  of  the 
infernal  machine  in  the  Rue  St.  Nicaise  spread  over 
Europe,  men  felt  more  intimately,  more  consciously, 
the  hopes,  the  fears,  bound  up  inextricably  with  the 
name,  the  actions,  and  the  life  of  the  new  world-de- 
liverer, the  Consul  Bonaparte. 

The  history  of  the  nineteenth  century  centres  in 
the  successive  transformations  of  this  ideal  so 
highly-pitched.  In  the  gradual  declension  of  the 
cause  which  was  then  a  religion,  and  to  mankind  the 
warrant  of  a  new  era,  into  a  local  or  party-cry,  a 
watchword  travestied  and  degraded,  lies  the  origin 
of  the  intellectual  despair  or  solicitude  which  marks 
the  closing  years  of  the  century.  The  first  disil- 
lusionment came  swiftly.  Fifteen  years  pass,  years 
of  war  and  convulsion  unexampled  in  Europe  since 
the  cataclysm  of  the  fifth  century,  the  century  of 
Alaric  and  Attila  —  and  within  that  space,  those 
fifteen  years,  what  a  revolution  in  all  the  sentiments, 
the  hopes,  the  aspirations  of  men!  The  Consul 
Bonaparte  has  become  the  Emperor  Napoleon,  the 
arch-enemy  of  Liberty  and  of  the  human  race. 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  249 

France,  the  world's  forlorn  hope  in  1800,  is,  in  1815, 
the  gathering  place  of  the  armies  of  Europe,  risen  in 
arms  against  her!  Emperors  and  kings,  nations, 
cities,  and  principalities,  statesmen  like  Stein,  philos- 
ophers like  Fichte,  poets  like  Arndt  and  Korner, 
warriors  like  Kutusov,  Bliicher,  and  Schwarzten- 
berg,  the  peoples  of  Europe  and  the  governments  of 
Europe,  the  oppressed  and  the  oppressors,  the  em- 
bittered enmities  and  the  wrongs  of  a  thousand  years 
forgotten,  had  leagued  together  in  this  vast  enter- 
prise, whose  end  was  the  destruction  of  one  nation 
and  one  sole  man  —  the  world-deliverer  of  but 
fifteen  years  ago ! 

What  tragedy  of  a  lost  leader  equals  this  of  Napo- 
leon? What  marvel  that  it  still  troubles  the  minds 
of  men  more  profoundly  than  any  other  of  modern 
ages.  Yet  Napoleon  did  not  betray  Liberty,  nor 
was  France  false  to  the  Revolution.  Man's  action 
at  its  highest  is,  like  his  art,  symbolic.  To  Camille 
Desmoulins  and  the  mob  behind  him  the  capture  of 
a  disused  fortress  and  the  liberation  of  a  handful  of 
men  made  the  fall  of  the  Bastille  the  symbol  and 
the  watch-word  of  Liberty.  To  the  Europe  of 
Napoleon,  the  monarchs  of  Russia,  Austria,  Prussia, 
and  Spain,  the  princes  of  Germany  and  Italy,  the 
Papal  power,  "  the  stone  thrust  into  the  side  of  Italy 
to  keep  the  wound  open  " —  these  were  like  the  Bas- 
tille to  the  France  of  Desmoulins,  a  symbol  of  op- 
pression and  wrong,  injustice  and  tyranny.  And 
in  Bonaparte,  whether  as  Consul  or  Emperor,  the 


250     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

peoples  of  Europe  for  a  time  beheld  the  hero  who 
led  against  the  tyrants  the  hosts  of  the  free.  What 
were  his  own  despotisms,  his  own  rigour,  his  cruelty, 
the  spy-system  of  Fouche,  the  stifled  Press,  the 
guet-ape'ns  of  Bayonne,  the  oppression  of  Prussia, 
and  one  sanguinary  war  followed  by  another  - 
what  were  these  things  but  the  discipline,  the  neces- 
sary sacrifice,  the  martyrdom  of  a  generation  for  the 
triumph  and  felicity  of  the  centuries  to  come? 
Napoleon  at  the  height  of  Imperial  power,  with 
thirty  millions  of  devoted  subjects  behind  him,  and 
legions  unequalled  since  those  of  Rome,  did  but 
make  Rousseau's  experiment.  "  The  emotions  of 
men,"  Rousseau  argued,  "  have  by  seventeen  hun- 
dred years  of  asceticism  and  Christianism  been  so 
disciplined,  that  they  can  now  be  trusted  to  their 
own  guidance."  The  hour  of  his  death,  whether  bv 
a  pistol  bullet  or  by  poison,  or  from  sheer  weariness, 
was  also  the  hour  of  Rousseau's  deepest  insight  into 
the  human  heart.  That  hour  of  penetrating  vision 
into  the  eternal  mystery  made  him  glad  to  rush  into 
the  silence  and  the  darkness.  Napoleon,  trusting  to 
the  word  and  to  the  ideal  Liberty,  to  man's  unstable 
desires  and  to  his  own  most  fixed  star,  yokes  France, 
in  1800  to  his  chariot  wheels.  But  at  the  outset  he 
has  to  compromise  with  the  past  of  France,  with  the 
ineradicable  traits  of  the  Celtic  race,  its  passion  for 
the  figures  on  the  veil  of  Maya,  its  rancours,  and  the 
meditated  vengeance  for  old  defeats.  Yet  it  is  in 
the  name  of  Liberty  rather  than  of  France  that  he 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  251 

greets  the  sun  of  Austerlitz,  breaks  the  ramrod 
despotism  of  Prussia,  and  meets  the  awful  resistance 
of  the  Slav  at  Eylau  and  Friedland.  Then,  turning 
to  the  West,  it  is  in  the  name  of  Liberty  that  he 
sends  Junot,  Marmont,  Soult,  and  Massena  across 
the  Pyrenees  to  restore  honour  and  law  to  Spain, 
and,  as  he  had  ended  the  mediaeval  Empire  of  the 
Hapsburgs,  to  end  there  in  Madrid  the  Inquisi- 
tion and  the  priestly  domination.  The  Inquisition, 
which  in  300  years  had  claimed  300,000  victims,  is 
indeed  suppressed,  but  Spain,  to  his  amazement,  is 
in  arms  to  a  man  against  its  liberators !  But  Napo- 
leon cannot  pause,  his  fate,  like  Hamlet's,  calling 
out,  and  whilst  his  Marshals  are  still  baffled  by  the 
lines  of  Torres  Vedras,  he  musters  his  hosts,  and, 
conquering  the  new  Austrian  Empire  at  Wagram, 
marches  Attila-like  across  a  subjugated  Europe 
against  the  Empire  and  capital  of  the  White  Czar. 

Napoleon's  fall  made  the  purpose  of  his  destiny 
clear  even  to  the  most  ardent  of  French  Royalists, 
and  to  the  most  contented  of  the  servants  of  Francis 
II  or  Frederick  William  III.  At  Vienna  the  gaily- 
plumaged  diplomatists  undid  in  a  month  all  that 
the  fifteen  years  of  unparalleled  action  and  suffering 
unparalleled  had  achieved;  whilst  the  most  matter- 
of-fact  of  all  British  Cabinets  invested  the  prison 
of  the  fallen  conqueror  with  a  tragic  poetry  which 
made  the  rock  in  the  Atlantic  but  too  fitting  an 
emblem  of  the  peak  in  the  Caucasus  and  the  linger- 
ing anguish  of  Prometheus.  And  if  not  one  man  of 


252      NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

supreme  genius  then  living  or  in  after  ages  has 
condemned  Napoleon,  if  the  poets  of  that  time, 
Goethe  and  Manzoni,  Poushkine,  Byron,  and  Ler- 
montoff,  made  themselves  votaries  of  his  fame,  it 
was  because  they  felt  already  what  two  generations 
have  made  a  commonplace,  that  his  hopes  had  been 
their  hopes,  his  disillusion  their  disillusion;  that 
in  political  freedom  no  more  than  in  religious  free- 
dom can  the  peace  of  the  world  be  found;  that 
Girondinism  was  no  final  evangel;  that  to  man's 
soul  freedom  can  never  be  an  end  in  itself,  but  only 
the  means  to  an  end. 

The  history  of  Europe  for  the  thirty-three  years 
following  the  abdication  at  the  Elysee  is  a  conflict 
between  the  two  principles  of  Absolutism  and 
Liberty,  represented  now  by  the  cry  for  constitu- 
tionalism and  the  Nation,  now  by  a  return  to  Giron- 
dinism and  the  watchword  of  Humanity.  In  theory 
the  divine  right  of  peoples  was  arrayed  against  the 
divine  right  of  kings.  The  conflict  was  waged  bit- 
terly; yet  it  was  a  conflict  without  a  battle.  The 
dungeon,  the  torture  chamber,  the  Siberian  mine, 
the  fortress  of  Spandau  or  Spielberg,  which  Silvio 
Pellico  has  made  remembered  —  these  were  the 
weapons  of  the  tyrants.  The  secret  society,  the 
Marianne,  the  Carbonari,  the  offshoots  of  the 
Tugendbund,  the  ineffectual  rising  or  transient 
revolution,  always  bloodily  repressed,  whether  in 
Italy,  Spain,  Russia,  Austria,  or  Poland  —  these 
were  the  sole  weapons  left  to  Liberty,  which  had 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  253 

once  at  its  summons  the  legions  of  Napoleon.  And 
in  this  singular  conflict,  what  leaders !  In  Spain,  the 
heroic  Juan  Martin,  the  brilliant  Riego ;  in  Germany, 
Gorres,  the  morning-star  of  political  journalism, 
Rodbertus  or  Borne;  in  France,  Saint-Simon,  and 
the  malcontents  who  still  believed  in  the  Bonapartist 
cause.  It  was  not  an  army,  but  a  crowd,  without 
unity  of  purpose  and  without  the  possibility  of 
united  action.  Opposed  to  these  were  the  united 
purposes,  moved,  for  a  time  at  least,  by  a  single  aim 
—  the  repression  of  the  common  enemy,  "  Revolu- 
tion/' in  every  State  of  Europe,  in  the  great 
monarchies  of  Austria,  France,  Russia,  as  in  the 
smaller  principalities  of  Germany,  the  kingdom  of 
the  Two  Sicilies,  Tuscany,  Piedmont,  Venetia,  and 
Modena.  To  this  war  against  Liberty  the  Czar 
Alexander,  the  white  angel  who,  in  Madame  de 
Kriidener's  phrase,  had  struck  down  the  black  angel 
Napoleon,  added  something  of  the  sanctity  of  a 
crusade.  From  God  alone  was  the  sovereign  power 
of  the  princes  of  the  earth  derived,  and  it  was  the 
task  of  the  Holy  Alliance  to  compel  the  peoples  to 
submit  to  this  divinely-appointed  and  righteous  des- 
potism. 

In  this  crusade  Austria  and  Metternich  occupy  in 
Europe  till  1848  the  place  which  France  and  Bona- 
parte had  occupied  in  the  earlier  crusade.  "  I  was 
born,"  says  Metternich  in  the  fragment  of  his  auto- 
biography, "  to  be  the  enemy  of  the  Revolution." 
Nature,  indeed,  and  the  environment  of  his  youth 


254     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

had  formed  him  to  act  the  part  of  the  genius  of  Re- 
action. Beneath  the  fine,  empty,  meaningless  mask 
of  the  Austrian  noble  lay  a  heart  which  had  never 
quivered  with  any  profound  emotion,  or  beat  high 
with  any  generous  impulse.  He  was  hostile  to  no- 
bility of  thought,  action,  and  art,  for  he  had  intelli- 
gence enough  to  discern  in  these  a  living  satire  upon 
himself,  his  life,  his  aims.  He  despised  history,  for 
history  is  the  tragedy  of  Humanity;  and  he  mocked 
at  philosophy.  But  he  patronised  Schlegel,  for  his 
watery  volumes  were  easy  reading,  and  made  rebel- 
lion seem  uncultured  and  submission  the  mark  of  a 
thoughtful  mind.  Metternich's  handsome  figure, 
fine  manners,  and  interminable  billets-doux  written 
between  sentences  of  death,  exile,  the  solitary  dun- 
geon, distinguish  his  appearance  and  habits  from 
Philip  II  of  Spain,  but,  like  him,  he  governed  Europe 
from  his  bureau,  guiding  the  movements  of  a  stand- 
ing army  of  300,000  men,  and  a  police  and  espionage 
department  never  surpassed  and  seldom  rivalled  in 
the  western  world.  There  was  nothing  in  him  that 
was  great.  But  he  was  indisputable  master  of 
Europe  for  thirty-three  years.  Nesselrode,  Harden- 
berg,  Talleyrand  even  —  whose  Memoirs  seem  the 
work  of  genius  beside  the  beaten  level  of  mediocrity 
of  Metternich's  —  found  their  designs  checked 
whenever  they  crossed  the  Austrian's  policy. 
Congress  after  Congress  —  Vienna,  Carlsbad,  Trop- 
pau,  Laybach,  Verona  —  exhibited  his  triumph  to 


THE  IDEAL  OF  LIBERTY  255 

Europe.  At  Laybach,  in  1821,  the  Emperor's  ad- 
dress to  the  professors  there,  and  thence  to  all  the 
professors  throughout  the  Empire,  was  dictated  by 
Metternich  — "  Hold  fast  by  what  is  old,  for  that 
alone  is  good.  If  our  forefathers  found  in  this  the 
true  path,  why  should  we  seek  another  ?  New  ideas 
have  arisen  amongst  you,  principles  which  I,  your 
Emperor,  have  not  sanctioned,  and  never  will  sanc- 
tion. Beware  of  such  ideas!  It  is  not  scholars  I 
stand  in  need  of,  but  of  loyal  subjects  to  my  Crown, 
and  you,  you  are  here  to  train  up  loyal  subjects  to 
me.  See  that  you  fulfil  this  task!"  Is  there  in 
human  history  a  document  more  blasting  to  the  repu- 
tation for  political  wisdom  or  foresight  of  him  who 
penned  it  ?  It  were  an  insult  to  the  great  Florentine 
to  style  such  piteous  ineptitudes  Machiavellian.  Yet 
they  succeeded.  The  new  evangel  had  lost  its 
power;  the  freedom  of  Humanity  was  the  dream  of 
a  few  ideologues;  the  positive  ideals  of  later  times 
had  not  yet  arisen.  Well  might  men  ask  themselves : 
Has  then  Voltaire  lived  in  vain,  and  the  Girondins 
died  in  vain?  Has  all  the  blood  from  Lodi  and 
Arcola  to  Austerlitz  and  the  Borodino  been  shed  in 
vain  ?  Hard  on  the  address  to  the  universities  there 
crept  silently  across  Europe  the  message  that  Napo- 
leon was  dead.  "It  is  not  an  event,"  said  Talley- 
rand, "  but  a  piece  of  news."  The  remark  was  just. 
Europe  seemed  now  one  vast  Sainte  Helene,  and 
men's  hearts  a  sepulchre  in  which  all  hope  or  desire 


256     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

for  Liberty  was  vanquished.  The  solitary  grave  at 
Longwood,  the  iron  railings,  the  stunted  willow, 
were  emblems  of  a  cause  for  ever  lost. 

The  Revolution  of  July  lit  the  gloom  with  a  mo- 
ment's radiance.  Heine's  letters  still  preserve  the 
electric  thrill  which  the  glorious  Three  Days  awak- 
ened. "  Lafayette,  the  tricolour,  the  Marseillaise! " 
he  writes  to  Varnhagen,  when  the  "  sunbeams 
wrapped  in  printer's  ink  "  reached  him  in  Heligo- 
land, "  I  am  a  child  of  the  Revolution,  and  seize 
again  the  sacred  weapons.  Bring  flowers!  I  will 
crown  my  head  for  the  fight  of  death.  Give  me  the 
lyre  that  I  may  sing  a  song  of  battle,  words  like  fiery 
stars  which  shoot  from  Heaven  and  burn  up  palaces 
and  illumine  the  cabins  of  the  poor."  But  when 
Lafayette  presented  to  France  that  best  of  all  pos- 
sible Republics,  the  fat  smile  and  cotton  umbrella 
of  Louis  Philippe;  when  throughout  Italy,  Sicily, 
Spain,  Germany,  insurrection  was  repressed  still 
more  coldly  and  cruelly;  when  Paskievitch  estab- 
lished order  in  Warsaw,  and  Czartoryski  resigned 
the  struggle  —  then  the  transient  character  of  the 
outbreak  was  visible.  France  herself  was  weary  of 
the  illusion.  "  We  had  need  of  a  sword,"  a  Polish 
patriot  wrote,  "  and  France  sent  us  her  tears."  The 
taunt  was  as  foolish  as  it  was  unjust.  France  as- 
suredly had  done  her  part  in  the  war  for  Liberty. 
The  hour  had  come  for  the  States  of  Europe  to  work 
out  their  own  salvation,  or  resign  themselves  to 
autocracy,  Jesuitism,  a  gagged  Press,  the  omnipres- 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          257 

ent  spy,  the  Troubetskoi  ravelin,  Spandau,  and  Met- 
ternich. 

Eighteen  years  were  to  pass  before  action,  but 
it  was  action  for  a  more  limited  and  less  glorious,  if 
more  practical,  ideal  than  the  freedom  of  the  world. 
Other  despots  died  —  Alexander  I  in  1825,  the  two 
Ferdinands,  of  Sicily  and  of  Spain,  Francis  II  him- 
self in  1835,  and  Frederick  William  III  in  1840. 
Gentz,  too,  was  dead,  Talleyrand,  Hardenberg,  and 
Pozzo  di  Borgo ;  but  Metternich  lived  on  — "  the 
gods/'  as  Sophocles  avers,  "  give  long  lives  to  the 
dastard  and  the  dog-hearted."  The  Revolution  of 
July  seemed  but  a  test  of  the  stability  of  the  fabric 
he  had  reared.  From  Guizot  and  his  master  he 
found  but  little  resistance.  The  new  Czar  Nicholas 
fell  at  once  into  the  Austrian  system;  and,  with 
Gerlach  as  Minister,  Prussia  offered  as  little  resist- 
ance as  the  France  of  Guizot.  Meanwhile,  in  1840, 
by  the  motion  of  Thiers,  Napoleon  had  returned 
from  Saint  Helena,  and  the  advance  of  his  coffin 
across  the  seas  struck  a  deeper  trouble  into  the  des- 
pots of  Europe  than  the  march  of  an  army. 

§  2.       NATIONALITY   AND   MODERN   REPUBLICANISM 

In  the  political  as  in  the  religious  ideals  of  men 
transformation  is  endless  and  unresting.  The  mo- 
ment of  collision  between  an  old  and  a  new  principle 
of  human  action  is  a  revolution.  Such  a  turning- 
point  is  the  movement  which  finds  its  climax  in 


258     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

Europe  in  the  year  1848.  Two  forces  there  present 
themselves,  hostile  to  each  other,  yet  indissolubly 
united  in  their  determining  power  upon  modern  as 
opposed  to  ancient  Republicanism  —  the  principle 
of  Nationality  and  the  principle  of  the  organisation 
of  Labour  against  Capital,  which  under  various  ap- 
pellations is  one  of  the  most  profoundly  significant 
forces  of  the  present  age.  The  freedom  of  the 
nation  was  the  form  into  which  the  older  ideal  of 
the  freedom  of  man  had  dwindled.  Saint-Simon- 
ianism  preserved  for  a  time  the  old  tradition.  But 
the  devotees  of  Saint-Simon's  greatest  work,  Le 
Nouveau  Christianisme ,  after  anticipating  in  their 
banquets,  graced  sometimes  by  the  presence  of  Mali- 
bran,  the  glories  of  the  coming  era,  quarrelled 
amongst  themselves,  and,  returning  to  common  life, 
became  zealous  workers  not  for  humanity,  but  for 
France,  for  Germany,  or  for  Italy.  Patriotism  was 
taking  the  place  of  Humanism. 

To  Lamartine,  indeed,  and  to  Victor  Hugo,  as  to 
cultured  Liberalism  throughout  Europe,  the  incidents 
in  Paris  of  February,  1848,  and  the  astounding 
rapidity  with  which  the  spirit  of  Revolutions  sped 
from  the  Seine  to  the  Vistula,  to  the  Danube  and 
the  frontiers  of  the  Czar  —  the  barricades  in  the 
streets  of  Vienna  and  Berlin,  the  flight  of  the  Em- 
peror and  the  hated  Metternich,  the  Congress  at 
Prague,  and  all  Hungary  arming  at  the  summons 
of  Kossuth,  the  daring  proclamation  of  the  party  of 
Roumanian  unity  —  appeared  as  a  glorious  continu- 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          259 

ance,  or  even  as  an  expansion,  of  the  ideals  of  1789 
and  1792.  Louis  Napoleon,  entering  like  the  cut- 
purse  King  in  Hamlet,  who  stole  a  crown  and  put  it 
in  his  pocket,  the  flight  of  Kossuth,  the  surrender  or 
the  treason  of  Gorgei,  the  coup  d'etat  of  December, 
1851,  shattered  these  airy  imaginings.  Yet  Napo- 
leon III  understood  at  least  one  aspect  of  the  change 
which  the  years  had  brought  better  than  the 
rhetorician  of  the  Girondins  or  the  poet  of  Hernani. 
For  the  principle  of  Nationality,  which  in  1848  they 
ignored,  became  the  foundation  of  the  second 
French  Empire,  of  the  unity  of  Italy,  and  of  that 
new  German  Empire  which,  since  1870,  has  affected 
the  State  system  of  Europe  more  potently  and  con- 
tinuously than  any  other  single  event  since  the  sud- 
den unity  of  Spain  under  Ferdinand  at  the  close  of 
the  fifteenth  century.  It  was  his  dexterous  and 
lofty  appeal  to  this  same  principle  which  gave  the 
volumes  of  Palacky's  History  of  Bohemia  a  power 
like  that  of  a  war-song.  Nationality  did  not  die  in 
Vienna  before  the  bands  of  Windischgratz  and  Jel- 
lachlich,  and  from  his  exile  Kossuth  guided  its 
course  in  Hungary  to  a  glorious  close  —  the  Magyar 
nation.  Even  in  Russia,  then  its  bitter  enemy,  this 
principle  quickened  the  ardour  of  Pan-Slavism, 
which  the  war  of  1878  —  the  Schipka  Pass,  Plevna, 
the  dazzling  heroism  of  Skobeleff —  has  made 
memorable.  In  the  triumph  of  this  same  principle 
lies  the  future  hope  of  Spain.  Spain  has  been  ex- 
hausted by  revolution  after  revolution,  by  Carlist  in- 


260     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

trigue,  by  the  arrogance  of  successive  dictators,  and 
by  the  bloody  reprisals  of  faction;  she  has  lost  the 
last  of  her  great  colonies;  but  to  Alphonso  XIII  fate 
seems  to  reserve  the  task  of  completing  again  by 
mutual  resignation  that  union  with  Portugal  of 
which  Castelar  indicated  the  basis  —  a  common 
blood  and  language,  the  common  graves  which  are 
their  ancient  battle-fields,  and  the  common  wars 
against  the  Moslem,  which  are  their  glory. 

With  the  names  of  Marx  and  Lassalle  is 
associated  the  second  great  principle  which,  in  1848, 
definitely  takes  its  place  on  the  front  of  the  Euro- 
pean stage.  This  is  the  principle  whose  votaries 
confronted  Lamartine  at  the  H6tel-de-Ville  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  25th  February.  The  famous  sen- 
tence, fortunate  as  Danton's  call  to  arms,  yet  by  its 
touch  of  sentimentality  marking  the  distinction  be- 
tween September,  1792,  and  February,  1848,  "The 
tricolour  has  made  the  tour  of  the  world;  the  red 
flag  but  the  tour  of  the  Champ  de  Mars,"  has  been 
turned  into  derision  by  subsequent  events.  The 
red  flag  has  made  the  tour  of  the  world  as  effec- 
tively as  the  tricolour  and  the  eagles  of  Bonaparte. 
The  origins  of  Communism,  Socialism,  Anarchism, 
Nihilsm  —  for  all  four,  however,  diverging  or  antag- 
onistic in  the  ends  they  immediately  pursue,  spring 
from  a  common  root  —  have  been  variously  ascribed 
in  France  to  the  work  of  Louis  Blanc,  Fourier, 
Proudhon,  or  in  Germany  to  Engels,  Stirner,  and 
Rodbertus,  or  to  the  countless  secret  societies  which 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          261 

arose  in  Spain,  Italy,  Austria,  and  Russia,  as  a  pro- 
test against  the  broken  pledges  of  kings  and  govern- 
ments after  the  Congress  of  Vienna.  But  the  prin- 
ciple which  informs  alike  the  writings  of  individual 
thinkers  and  agitators,  though  deriving  a  peculiar 
force  in  the  first  half  of  the  century  from  the  doc- 
trines and  teachings  of  Fichte  and  Schleiermacher, 
is  but  the  principle  to  which  in  all  ages  suffering 
and  wrong  have  made  their  vain  appeal  —  the  re- 
sponsibility of  all  for  the  misery  of  the  many  and 
the  enduring  tyranny  of  the  few.  Indignant  at 
the  spectacle,  the  Nihilist  in  orthodox  Russia  ap- 
plies his  destructive  criticism  to  all  institutions,  civil, 
religious,  political,  and  finding  all  hollow,  seeks  to 
overwhelm  all  in  one  common  ruin.  The  Emanci- 
pation of  1861  was  to  the  Nihilist  but  the  act  of 
Tyranny  veiling  itself  as  Justice.  It  left  the  serf, 
brutalised  by  centuries  of  oppression,  even  more 
completely  than  before  to  the  mercy  of  the  boyard 
and  the  exploiters  of  human  souls.  Michel  Bakou- 
nine,  Kropotkine,  Stepniak,  Michaelov,  and  Sophia 
Perovskaya,  whose  handkerchief  gave  the  signal  to 
the  assassins  of  Alexander  II,  were  but  actualisa- 
tions  of  TourgeniefFs  imaginary  hero  Bazaroff,  and 
for  a  time,  indeed,  Bazarofrism  was  in  literary 
jargon  the  equivalent  of  Nihilism.  If  at  intervals 
in  recent  years  a  shudder  passes  across  Europe  at 
some  new  crime,  attempted  or  successful,  of  Anar- 
chy, if  Europe  notes  the  singular  regularity  with 
which  the  crime  is  traced  to  Italy,  and  is  perplexed 


262      NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

at  the  absence  of  all  the  usual  characteristics  of  con- 
spiracy against  society  —  for  what  known  motives 
of  human  action,  vanity  or  fear,  hope  or  the  gratifi- 
cation of  revenge,  can  explain  the  silence  of  the  con- 
federates of  Malatesta,  and  the  blind  obedience  of  the 
agents  of  his  will?  —  if  Europe  is  perplexed  at  this 
apparition  of  a  terror  unknown  to  the  ancient  world, 
the  Italian  sees  in  it  but  the  operation  of  the  law  of 
responsibility.  To  the  nameless  sufferings  of  Italy 
he  ascribes  the  temper  which  leads  to  the  mania 
of  the  anarchist;  and  the  sufferings  of  Italy  in  their 
morbid  stage  he  can  trace  to  the  betrayal  of  Italy 
by  Europe  in  1816,  in  1821,  in  1831,  in  1848,  and 
supremely,  in  1856.  As  Europe  has  grown  more 
conscious  of  its  essential  unity  as  one  State  system, 
diplomacy  has  wandered  from  such  conceptions  as 
the  Balance  of  Power,  through  Gortschakoff's  ironic 
appeal  to  the  equality  of  kings,  to  the  derisive  theory 
of  the  Concert  of  Europe.  But  Communism  and 
Anarchism  have  afforded  a  proof  of  the  unity  of 
Europe  more  convincing  and  more  terrible,  and  full 
of  sinister  presage  to  the  future. 

A  third  aspect  of  this  revolt  of  misery  is  Social- 
ism. Karl  Marx  may  be  regarded  as  the  chief  ex- 
ponent, if  not  the  founder,  of  cosmopolitan  or  inter- 
national Socialism,  and  Lassalle  as  the  actual 
founder  of  the  national  or  Democratic  Socialism  of 
Germany.  Marx,  whose  countenance  with  its 
curious  resemblance  to  that  of  the  dwarf  of  Velas- 
quez, Sebastian  de  Morra,  seems  to  single  him  out 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          263 

as  the  apostle  and  avenger  of  human  degradation 
and  human  suffering,  published  the  first  sketch  of 
his  principles  in  1847,  ku*  mor^  completely  in  the 
manifesto  adopted  by  the  Paris  Commune  in  1849. 
As  the  Revolution  of  1789  is  to  be  traced  to  the  op- 
pression of  the  peasantry  by  feudal  insolence,  never 
weary  in  wrong-doing,  as  described  by  Boisguilbert 
and  Mirabeau  pere,  so  the  new  revolutionary  move- 
ment of  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  has  its 
origin  in  the  oppression  of  the  artisan  class  by  the 
new  aristocracy,  the  bourgeosie.  Factory  owrners 
and  millionaires  have  taken  the  place  of  the  noblesse 
of  last  century.  And  the  sufferings  of  the  prole- 
tariat, peasant  and  artisan  alike,  have  increased  with 
their  numbers.  Freedom  has  taught  the  myriads  of 
workers  new  desires.  Heightened  intelligence  has 
given  them  the  power  to  contrast  their  own 
wretchedness  with  the  seeming  happiness  of  others, 
and  a  standard  by  which  to  measure  their  own  degra- 
dation, and  to  sound  the  depths  of  their  own  despair. 
Marx's  greatest  work,  Das  Kapital,  published  in 
1867,  was  to  the  new  revolution  just  such  an  inspira- 
tion and  guide  as  the  Contrat  Social  of  Rousseau 
was  to  the  revolution  of  '89.  The  brilliant  genius 
of  Lassalle  yielded  to  the  sway  of  the  principle  of 
Nationality,  and  ultimately  of  Empire,  as  strongly 
as  the  narrower  and  gloomier  nature  of  Marx  was 
repelled  by  these  principles.  It  was  this  trait  in 
his  writings,  as  well  as  the  fiery  energy  of  his  soul 
and  his  faith  in  the  Prussian  peasant  and  the 


264     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

Prussian  artisan,  that  attracted  for  a  time  the  inter- 
est of  Bismarck.  Even  a  State  such  as  Austria 
Lassalle  regarded  as  higher  than  any  federal  union 
whatever.  The  image  of  Lassalle's  character,  his 
philosophy,  and  too  swift  career,  may  be  found  in 
his  earliest  work,  Heracleitus,  the  god-gifted  states- 
man whom  Plato  delineated,  seeking  not  his  own, 
but  realising  his  life  in  that  of  others,  toiling  cease- 
lessly for  the  oppressed,  the  dumb,  helpless,  leader- 
less  masses  who  suffer  silently,  yet  know  not  why 
they  suffer.  A  monarchy  resting  upon  the  support 
of  the  artisan-myriads  against  the  arrogance  of  the 
bourgeois,  as  the  Tudor  monarchy  rested  upon  the 
support  of  the  yeomen  and  the  towns  against  the 
arrogance  of  the  feudal  barons  —  this,  in  the  most 
effective  period  of  his  career,  was  Lassalle's  ideal 
State.  And  it  is  his  remarkable  pamphlet  in  reply 
to  the  deputation  from  Leipsic  in  1863  that  has  fitly 
been  characterised  as  the  charter  of  the  whole  move- 
ment of  democratic  socialism  in  Germany  down  to 
the  present  hour. 

The  Revolution  of  1848  revealed  to  European 
Liberalism  a  more  formidable  adversary  than  Met- 
ternich.  The  youth  of  Nicholas  I  had  been  formed 
by  the  same  tutors  as  that  of  his  elder  brother,  the 
Czar  Alexander.  The  Princess  Lieven  and  his 
mother,  Maria  Federovna,  the  friend  of  Stein,  and 
the  implacable  enemy  of  Napoleon,  had  found  in 
him  a  pupil  at  once  devoted,  imaginative,  and  un- 
wearied. A  resolute  will,  dauntless  courage,  a  love 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          265 

of  the  beautiful  in  nature  and  in  art,  a  high-souled 
enthusiasm  for  his  country,  made  him  seem  the  fate- 
appointed  leader  of  Russia's  awakening  energies. 
The  Teuton  in  his  blood  effaced  the  Slav,  and  the 
fixed,  the  unrelenting  pursuit  of  one  sole  purpose 
gives  his  career  something  of  the  tragic  unity  of 
Napoleon's,  and  leaves  him  still  the  supreme  type  of 
the  Russian  autocrat.  One  God,  one  law,  one 
Church,  one  State,  Russian  in  language,  Russian  in 
creed,  Russian  in  all  the  labyrinthine  grades  of  its 
civic,  military,  and  municipal  life  —  this  was  the 
dream  to  the  realisation  of  which  the  thirty  crowded 
years  of  his  reign  were  consecrated.  There  is 
grandeur  as  well  as  swiftness  of  decision  in  the  man- 
ner in  which  he  encounters  and  quells  the  insurrec- 
tion of  the  26th  December.  Then,  true  to  the  im- 
memorial example  of  tyrants,  he  found  employment 
for  sedition  in  war.  He  tore  from  Persia  in  a  single 
campaign  two  rich  provinces  and  an  indemnity  of 
20,000,000  roubles.  The  mystic  Liberalism  of 
Alexander  was  abandoned.  The  free  constitution 
of  Poland,  the  eyesore  of  the  boyards  and  the  old 
Russian  party,  was  overthrown,  and  a  Russian,  as 
distinct  from  a  German,  policy  was  welcomed  with 
surprise  and  tumultuous  delight.  "  Despotism,"  he 
declared,  "is  the  principle  of  my  government;  my 
people  desires  no  other."  Yet  he  endeavoured  to 
win  young  Russia  by  flattery,  as  he  had  conquered 
old  Russia  by  reaction.  He  encouraged  the  move- 
ment in  poetry  against  the  tasteless  imitation  of 


266     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

Western  models,  and  in  society  against  the  domi- 
nance of  the  French  language.  In  the  first  years  of 
his  reign  French  ceases  to  be  a  medium  of  literary 
expression,  and  Russian  prose  and  Russian  verse  ac- 
quire their  own  cadences.  Yet  liberty  is  the  life- 
blood  of  art;  and  liberty  he  could  not  grant.  The 
freedom  of  the  Press  was  interdicted;  liberty  of 
speech  forbidden,  and  a  strict  censorship,  exercised 
by  the  dullest  of  officials,  stifled  literature.  "  How 
unfortunate  is  this  Bonaparte!"  a  wit  remarked 
when  Pichegru  was  found  strangled  on  the  floor  of 
his  dungeon,  "  all  his  prisoners  die  on  his  hands." 
How  unfortunate  was  the  Czar  Nicholas!  All  his 
men  of  genius  died  by  violent  deaths.  LermontofT 
and  Poushkine  fell  in  duels  before  antagonists  who 
represented  the  tchinovnik  class.  Rileyev  died  on 
the  scaffold;  Griboiedov  was  assassinated  at  Tehe- 
ran. 

His  foreign  policy  was  a  return  to  that  of  Cather- 
ine the  Great  —  the  restoration  of  the  Byzantine 
Empire.  Making  admirable  use  of  the  Hellenic  en- 
thusiasm of  Canning,  he  destroyed  the  Turkish  fleet 
at  Navarino.  Thus  popular  at  home  and  abroad, 
regarded  by  the  Liberals  of  Europe  as  the  restorer 
of  Greek  freedom,  and  by  the  Legitimists  as  a 
stronger  successor  to  Alexander,  he  was  able  to 
crush  the  Poles.  Enthusiastic  Berlin  students  car- 
ried the  effigies  of  Polish  leaders  in  triumph ;  but  not 
a  sword  was  drawn.  England,  France,  Austria 
looked  on  silent  at  the  work  of  Diebitch  and 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          267 

Paskievitch,  "  my  two  mastiffs,"  as  the  Czar  styled 
them,  and  the  true  "  finis  Polonicz  "  had  come.  A 
Russian  Army  marching  against  Kossuth,  and  the 
Czar's  demand  for  the  extradition  of  the  heroic 
Magyar,  unmasked  the  despot.  Yet  his  European 
triumph  was  complete,  and  the  war  in  the  Crimea 
seemed  his  crowning  chance  —  the  humiliating  of 
the  two  Powers  which  in  his  eyes  represented 
Liberty  and  the  Revolution.  Every  force  that  per- 
sonal rancour,  and  the  devotion  of  years  to  one  sole 
end,  every  measure  that  reason  and  State  policy 
could  dictate,  lent  their  aid  to  stimulate  the  efforts 
of  the  monarch  in  this  enterprise.  The  disaster  was 
sudden,  overwhelming,  irremediable.  Yet  in  one 
thing  his  life  was  a  success,  and  that  a  great  one  — 
he  had  Russianised  Russia. 

The  Crimean  War  marks  a  turning-point  in  the 
History  of  Europe  only  less  significant  than  the 
Revolution  of  1848.  The  isolating  force  of  religion 
was  annulled,  and  the  slowly  increasing  influence 
of  the  East  upon  the  West  affected  even  the  routine 
of  diplomacy.  .The  hopes  of  the  Carlists  and  the 
Jesuits  in  Spain  were  frustrated,  and  Austria,  de- 
prived of  the  reward  of  her  neutrality,  could  look 
no  more  to  the  Muscovite  for  aid  in  crushing  Italian 
freedom,  as  she  had  crushed  Hungary.  From  his 
deep  chagrin  at  the  treason  of  the  Powers,  Cavour 
seemed  to  gather  new  strength  and  a  political  wis- 
dom which  sets  his  name  with  those  of  the  greatest 
constructive  statesmen  of  all  time.  The  defeat  at 


268     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

Novara  was  avenged,  the  policy  of  Villa  franca,  and 
the  designs  of  that  singular  saviour  of  society, 
Louis  Napoleon,  were  checked.  Venetia  was  recov- 
ered, and  when  in  1870  the  lines  around  Metz  and 
Sedan  withdrew  the  French  bayonets  which  hedged 
in  Pio  Nono,  Victor  Emmanuel  entered  Rome  as 
King  of  Italy.  Thirty  years  have  passed  since  the 
20th  September,  and  the  burdens  of  taxation  and 
military  sacrifices  which  Italy  has  borne,  with  the 
prisoner  in  the  Vatican  like  a  conspirator  on  her 
own  hearth,  can  be  compared  only  with  the  burdens 
which  Prussia  endured  for  the  sake  of  glory  and  her 
kings  before  and  after  Rossbach.  But  instead  of 
a  Rossbach,  Italy  has  had  an  Adowa;  instead  of 
justice,  a  corrupt  official  class  and  an  army  of  judges 
who  make  justice  a  mockery,  anarchism  in  her 
towns,  a  superstitious  peasantry,  an  aristocracy  dead 
to  the  future  and  to  the  memory  of  the  past.  This 
heroic  patriotism,  steadfast  patience,  and  fortitude 
in  disaster  have  their  roots  in  the  noblest  hearts 
of  Italy  herself,  but  there  is  not  one  which  in  the 
trial  hour  has  not  felt  its  own  strength  made 
stronger,  its  own  resolution  made  loftier,  by  the 
genius  and  example  of  a  single  man  —  Giuseppe 
Mazzini.  To  modern  Republicanism,  not  only  of 
Italy,  but  of  Europe,  Mazzini  gave  a  higher  faith 
and  a  watchword  that  is  great  as  the  watchwords 
of  the  world.  Equal  rights  mean  equal  duties. 
The  Rights  of  Man  imply  the  Duties  of  Man.  He 
taught  the  millions  of  workers  in  Italy  that  their 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          269 

life-purpose  lay  not  in  the  extortion  of  privileges, 
but  in  making  themselves  worthy  of  those. privileges; 
that  it  was  not  in  conquering  capitalists  that  the  path 
of  victory  lay,  but  in  all  classes  of  Italians  striving 
side  by  side  towards  a  common  end,  the  beauty  and 
freedom  of  Italy,  by  establishing  freedom  and 
beauty  in  the  soul. 

The  movement  towards  unity  in  Germany  is  old 
as  the  war  of  Liberation  against  Napoleon,  old  as 
Luther's  appeal  to  the  German  Princes  in  1520. 
The  years  following  Leipsic  were  consumed  by  Ger- 
man Liberalism  in  efforts  to  invent  a  constitution 
like  that  of  England.  It  was  the  happy  period  of 
the  doctrinaire,  of  the  pedant,  and  of  the  student  of 
1688  and  the  pupils  of  Sieves.  Heine's  bitter  ad- 
dress to  Germany,  "  Dream  on,  thou  son  of  Folly, 
dream  on !  "  sprang  from  a  chagrin  which  every 
sincere  German,  Prussian,  Bavarian,  Wurtemberger, 
or  Rheinlander  felt  not  less  deeply.  The  Revolu- 
tion of  1848,  the  blood  spilt  at  the  barricades  in  the 
streets  of  Vienna  and  Berlin,  did  not  end  this ;  but  it 
roused  the  better  spirits  amongst  the  opposition  to 
deeper  perception  of  the  aspiration  of  all  Germany. 
Which  of  the  multifarious  kingdoms  and  duchies 
could  form  the  centre  of  a  new  union,  federal  or 
imperial  ?  Austria,  with  her  long  line  of  Hapsburg 
monarchs,  her  tyranny,  her  obscurantism,  her 
tenacious  hold  upon  the  past,  had  been  the  enemy  or 
the  oppressor  of  every  State  in  turn.  The  Danu- 
bian  principalities,  Bohemia,  Hungary,  pointed  out 


270     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

to  Vienna  a  task  in  the  future  calculated  to  try  her 
declining  energy  to  the  utmost.  Prussia  alone 
possessed  the  heroic  past,  the  memory  of  Frederick, 
of  Blucher,  of  Stein,  Scharnhorst,  and  Yorck;  and, 
if  politically  despotic,  she  was  essentially  Protes- 
tant in  religion,  and  Protestantism  offered  the  hope 
of  religious  tolerance.  After  Austria's  defeat  in 
Italy,  the  issue  north  of  the  Alps  was  inevitable. 
The  question  was  how  and  in  what  shape  the  end 
would  realise  itself.  Montesquieu  insists  that,  even 
without  Caius  Julius,  the  fall  of  the  oligarchy  and 
the  establishment  of  the  Roman  Empire  was  fixed  as 
by  a  law  of  fate.  Yet,  with  data  before  us,  it  is 
hard  to  imagine  the  creation  of  the  new  German 
Empire  without  Bismarck.  His  downright  Prus- 
sianism  rises  like  a  rock  through  the  mists,  amid  the 
vaporous  Liberalism  of  the  pre-Revolutionary 
period.  His  unbroken  resolution  gave  strength  to 
the  wavering  purpose  of  Frederick  William  IV. 
His  diplomacy  led  to  Koniggratz,  and  the  manipu- 
lated telegram  from  Ems  turned,  as  Moltke  said,  a 
retreat  into  a  call  to  battle.  And  in  front  of  Metz 
his  wisdom  kept  the  Bavarian  legions  in  the  field. 
From  his  first  definite  entry  into  a  State  career  in 
1848  to  the  dismissal  of  1887,  his  deep  religion,  wis- 
dom, and  simplicity  of  nature  are  as  distinctly  Prus- 
sian as  the  glancing  ardour  of  Skobeleff  is  distinctly 
Russian.  From  the  Hohenzollern  he  looked  for  no 
gratitude.  His  loyalty  was  loyalty  to  the  kingship, 
not  to  the  individual.  He  had  early  studied  the 


MODERN  REPUBLICANISM          271 

career  of  Strafford,  and  knew  the  value  of  the  word 
of  a  King.  False  or  true  to  all  men  else,  he  was 
unwaveringly  true  to  Prussia,  which  to  Bismarck 
meant  being  true  to  himself,  true  to  God.  He  could 
not  bequeath  his  secret  to  those  who  came  after  him 
any  more  than  Leonardo  could  bequeath  his  secret 
to  Luini.  But  the  Empire  he  built  up  has  the  ele- 
ments of  endurance.  It  possesses  in  the  Middle 
Age  common  traditions,  deep  and  penetrating,  a 
common  language,  and  the  recent  memory  of  a 
marvellous  triumph.  Protestantism  and  the  Prus- 
sian temper  ensure  religious  freedom  to  Bavaria. 
Even  in  1870  the  old  principles  of  the  Seven  Years' 
War,  Protestantism  and  the  neo-Romanism  of  Pius 
IX,  reappear  in  the  opposing  ranks  at  Gravelotte  and 
Sedan.  The  new  Empire,  whether  it  be  to  Europe  a 
warrant  of  peace  or  of  war,  is  at  least  a  bulwark 
against  Ultramontanism. 

The  change  in  French  political  life  finds  its  ex- 
pression in  the  Russian  alliance.  Time  has  atoned 
for  the  disasters  at  the  Alma  and  Inkermann. 
Would  one  discover  the  secret  at  the  close  of  the 
century  of  the  alliance  of  Russia  and  France,  free- 
dom's forlorn  hope  when  the  century  began?  It 
is  contained  in  the  speech  of  Skobeleff  which  once 
startled  Europe :  "  The  struggle  between  the  Slav 
and  the  Teuton  no  human  power  can  avert.  Even 
now  it  is  near,  and  the  struggle  will  be  long,  terrible, 
and  bloody;  but  this  alone  can  liberate  Russia  and 
the  whole  Slavonic  race  from  the  tyranny  of  the 


272     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

intruder.  No  man's  home  is  a  home  till  the  German 
has  been  expelled,  and  the  rush  to  the  East,  the 
'  Drang  nach  Osten '  turned  back  for  ever." 

§  3.       THE    IDEALS   OF  A    NEW   AGE 

In  modern  Europe  political  revolutions  have  inva- 
riably been  preceded  or  accompanied  by  revolutions 
in  thought  or  religion.  The  nineteenth  century, 
which  has  been  convulsed  by  thirty-three  revolu- 
tions, the  overthrow  of  dynasties,  and  the  assassi- 
nation of  kings,  has  also  been  characterised  by  the 
range  and  daring  of  its  speculative  inquiry.  Every 
system  of  thought  which  has  perplexed  or  enthralled 
the  imagination  of  man,  every  faith  that  has  exalted 
or  debased  his  intelligence,  has  had  in  this  age  its 
adherents.  The  Papacy  in  each  successive  decade 
has  gained  by  this  tumult  and  mental  disquietude. 
Thought  is  anguish  to  the  masses  of  men,  any  drug 
is  precious,  and  to  escape  from  its  misery  the  soul 
conspires  against  her  own  excellence  and  the  perfec- 
tion of  Nature.  Even  in  1802  Napoleon  in  his 
Hamlet-like  musings  in  the  Tuileries  despaired  of 
Liberty  as  the  safety  of  the  world,  and  in  his  tragic 
course  this  despair  adds  a  metaphysical  touch  to 
his  doom.  Five  Popes  have  succeeded  him  who 
anointed  Bonaparte,  and  the  very  era  of  Darwin 
and  Strauss  has  been  illustrated  or  derided  by  the 
bull,  " Ineffabilis  Deus"  the  Council  of  the  Vatican, 
the  thronged  pilgrimages  to  Lourdes,  and  the  neo- 


THE  IDEALS  OF  A  NEW  AGE       273 

Romanism  of  French  litterateurs.  The  Hellenism 
of  Goethe  was  a  protest  against  this  movement, 
at  once  in  its  intellectual  and  its  literary  forms,  the 
Romanticism  of  Tieck  and  Novalis,  the  cultured 
pietism  of  Lammenais  and  Chateaubriand.  Yet  in 
Faust  Goethe  attempted  a  reconciliation  of  Hellas 
and  the  Middle  Age,  and  the  work  is  not  only  the 
supreme  literary  achievement  of  the  century,  but 
its  greatest  prophetic  book.  Then  science  became 
the  ally  of  poetry  and  speculative  thought  in  the 
war  against  Obscurantism,  Ultramontanism,  and 
Jesuitism  in  all  its  forms.  Geology  flung  back  the 
aeons  of  the  past  till  they  receded  beyond  imagina- 
tion's wing.  Astronomy  peopled  with  a  myriad 
suns  the  infinite  solitudes  of  space.  The  theory 
of  evolution  stirred  the  common  heart  of  Europe 
to  a  fury  of  debate  upon  questions  confined  till 
then  to  the  studious  calm  of  the  few.  The  ardour 
to  know  all,  to  be  all,  to  do  all,  here  upon  earth  and 
now,  which  the  nineteenth  century  had  inherited 
from  the  Renaissance,  quickened  every  inventive 
faculty  of  man,  and  surprise  has  followed  surprise. 
The  aspirations  of  the  Revolutionary  epoch  towards 
some  ideal  of  universal  humanity,  its  sympathy  with 
the  ideals  of  all  the  past,  Hellas,  Islam,  the  Middle 
Age,  received  from  the  theories  of  science,  and 
from  increased  facilities  of  communication  and  loco- 
motion, a  various  and  most  living  impulse.  As 
man  to  the  European  imagination  became  isolated 
in  space,  and  the  earth  a  point  lost  in  the  sounding 


274     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

vastness  of  the  atom-shower  of  the  worlds,  he  also 
became  conscious  to  himself  as  one.  The  bounds 
of  the  earth,  his  habitation,  drew  nearer  as  the  stars 
receded,  and  surveying  the  past^  his  history  seemed 
less  a  withdrawal  from  the  Divine  than  an  ever- 
deepening  of  the  presence  of  the  Divine  within  the 
soul. 

That  which  in  speculation  pre-eminently  distin- 
guishes the  Europe  of  the  nineteenth  century  from 
preceding  centuries  —  the  gradually  increasing 
dominion  of  Oriental  thought,  art,  and  action  —  has 
strengthened  this  impression.  An  age  mystic  in  its 
religion,  symbolic  in  its  art,  and  in  its  politics  apath- 
etic or  absolutist,  succeeds  an  age  of  formal  re- 
ligion, conventional  art,  and  Republican  enthusi- 
asm. Goethe  in  1809,  from  the  overthrow  of  dynas- 
ties and  the  crash  of  thrones,  turned  to  the  East  and 
found  peace.  What  were  the  armies  of  Napoleon 
and  the  ruin  of  Europe's  dream  to  Hafiz  and  Sadi, 
and  to  the  calm  of  the  trackless  centuries  far  be- 
hind? The  mood  of  Goethe  has  become  the  char- 
acteristic of  the  art,  the  poetry,  the  speculation  of 
the  century's  end.  The  bizarre  genius  of  Nietzsche, 
whose  whole  position  is  implicit  in  Goethe's  Divan, 
popularised  it  in  Germany.  The  youngest  of  litera- 
tures, Norway  and  Russia,  reveal  its  power  as 
vividly  as  the  oldest,  Italy  and  France.  It  controls 
the  meditative  depth  of  Leopardi,  the  melancholy 
of  Tourgenieff,  the  nobler  of  Ibsen's  dramas,  and 
the  cadenced  prose  of  Flaubert.  It  informs  the 


THE  IDEALS  OF  A  NEW  AGE       275 

teaching  of  Tolstoi  and  the  greater  art  of  Tschai- 
kowsky.  Goethe,  at  the  beginning  of  the  century, 
moulded  into  one  the  ideals  of  the  Middle  Age  and 
of  Hellas,  and  so  Wagner  at  the  close,  in  Tristan 
and  in  Parsifal,  has  woven  the  Oriental  and  the 
mediaeval  spirit,  thought,  and  passion,  the  Minne- 
singer's lays  and  the  mystic  vision  of  the  Upanishads 
into  a  rainbow  torrent  of  harmony,  which,  with  its 
rivals,  the  masterpieces  of  Beethoven,  Schubert, 
Brahms,  and  Tschaikowksy,  make  this  century  the 
Periclean  age  of  Music  as  the  fifteenth  was  the 
Periclean  age  of  painting,  and  the  sixteenth  of 
poetry. 

What  a  vision  of  the  new  age  thus  opens  before 
the  gaze!  The  ideal  of  Liberty  and  all  its  hopes 
have  turned  to  ashes;  but  out  of  the  ruins  Europe, 
tireless  in  the  pursuit  of  the  Ideal,  ponders  even  now 
some  pro  founder  mystery,  some  mightier  destiny. 
More  than  any  race  known  to  history  the  Teuton  has 
the  power  of  making  other  religions,  other  thoughts, 
other  arts  his  own,  and  sealing  them  with  the  im- 
press of  his  own  spirit.  The  poetry  of  Shakespeare, 
of  Goethe,  the  tone-dramas  of  Wagner  attest  this. 
Out  of  the  thought  and  faith  of  Judaea  and  Hellas, 
of  Egypt  and  Rome,  the  Teutonic  imagination  has 
carved  the  present.  Their  ideals  have  passed  into 
his  life  imperishably.  But  the  purple  fringe  of  an- 
other dawn  is  on  the  horizon.  Teutonic  heroism 
and  resolution  in  action,  transformed  by  the  cen- 
turies behind  and  the  ideals  of  the  elder  races,  con- 


276     NINETEENTH  CENTURY  EUROPE 

front  now,  creative,  the  East,  its  mighty  calm,  its 
resignation,  its  scorn  of  action  and  the  familiar  aims 
of  men,  its  inward  vision,  its  deep  disdain  of  realised 
ends.  What  vistas  arise  before  the  mind  which 
seeks  to  penetrate  the  future  of  this  union!  The 
eighteenth  century  at  its  close  coincided  with  an  ac- 
complished hope  clearly  defined.  The  last  sun  of 
the  dying  century  goes  down  upon  a  world  brood- 
ing over  an  unsolved  enigma,  pursuing  an  ideal  it 
but  darkly  discerns. 


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